Spaces and Full-Screen Apps¶

DesktopRenamer distinguishes regular Mission Control spaces from fullscreen application spaces.

A named Study space label displayed over the desktop — Space labels stay visible while you work, so the current context is always clear.

Regular spaces can be named and manually reordered from Settings → Spaces. Drag a row to a new position, or use the launcher and AppleScript rearrangement commands.

Fullscreen spaces are owned by the application that created them. Their displayed names are derived from that application, and macOS may recreate or reposition them during fullscreen transitions.

Launcher and multiple displays¶

The native launcher groups spaces by display. When it opens, it shows spaces for the display under the pointer; if that display has no spaces, it falls back to the current display. In the launcher’s Command-K actions, Move Space Up and Move Space Down can reorder fullscreen spaces as well as regular spaces. Fullscreen spaces remain app-owned and cannot be renamed or locked.

Automatic fullscreen placement¶

When Keep full-screen spaces next to source desktop is enabled, DesktopRenamer attempts to place a newly created fullscreen space immediately after the desktop from which the app entered fullscreen. The operation is asynchronous because Mission Control state is not stable during the transition.

Space Lock and window restoration¶

When an app leaves a locked space automatically, DesktopRenamer attempts to move its active window back to that space and records the move for later restoration. Enable Automatically restore windows when unlocking in Settings → Switch to return tracked windows when unlocking their original space. With this option on, unlocking all spaces restores all tracked windows. Restoration runs asynchronously and depends on the windows and spaces still being available.

Limitations¶

macOS ManagedSpaceIDs exposed by legacy APIs are system-managed and can change after display changes, sleep/wake, or Mission Control updates. Structured SpaceAPI and AppleScript records instead use DesktopRenamer-owned IDs; see Space identifiers.
Rearrangement requires a macOS version that exposes the native operation.
Window movement across fullscreen spaces may temporarily enter or exit fullscreen to complete the operation.
Multiple displays have independent space sequences.