348

I would very much like to disable the sliding animation that occurs when switching desktops via ctrl+→/← or ctrl+[number] in Lion. This was previously accomplished in previous versions with this command:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES && killall Dock

This new animation is even more slow than in Snow Leopard - nearly 1 second to switch - a real productivity killer.

Any help greatly appreciated!

gentmatt
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Rob J
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    For me, it's not so much the time, more that to be my most productive I switch desktops like a a crazy man, I find this new animation is making me feel sick... no need for the background and ALL desktop icons to move every time is there. will post back here if I find a solution. –  Jul 23 '11 at 11:05
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    I agree with Rob, the animation creates the same feeling as being seasick. Just a way to make it faster or even remove that small bit of easing at the end would be good. – Ryan Bigg Jul 25 '11 at 05:43
  • This is probably a situation where the problem is simply still too new. Over the course of time, I expect there to be numerous articles about this sort of thing and integration into the various "preference-changing" apps like Onyx. You may just have to wait a little while. – Chris Pratt Jul 25 '11 at 15:28
  • @Rob background, icons, and menubar: the latter could just fade in in place, and slide up when reaching a fullscreen app space. – Lloeki Jul 29 '11 at 08:55
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    I added a small bounty in the hopes for someone to put in some effort of actually trying to find a method to do this, simple google fu just won't cut it. – tstm Aug 16 '11 at 12:43
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    What a great thread! Thank you Samuel for the trick to enter Mission Control switch with zero lag! Amazing. I'm also patiently waiting for a way to turn off the space-switchin animation in Lion. It is utterly annoying. I can't understand why they had to make the desktop and menu bar move as well. It was much better in 10.6 when only the active app windows moved. Now that everything moves and is animated, it makes me very dizzy as I switch spaces constantly. At least using ctrl+number keys have a quicker animation than ctrl+arrow keys. But I would prefer to use the arrow keys. The way spaces wo –  Sep 10 '11 at 19:01
  • We really need an app to manage all the animation speeds in Lion... – Aram Kocharyan Oct 09 '11 at 03:36
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    Patiently waiting for spaces fix, still can't believe there isn't a solution. Absolutely loathe that animation. – Gavin Gilmour Dec 18 '11 at 11:23
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    If the only app you want fullscreen and not doing this happens to be iTerm, you're in luck: in the General panel of the preferences, there's a checkbox "Use Lion-style Fullscreen windows" that defaults to checked. Uncheck it and iTerm will be able to go fullscreen behind other windows. – alxndr Nov 12 '13 at 18:47
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    I hate you Apple. I love workspaces on any system, but I'm about to throw up. It's just messed up, really. – Apache Feb 18 '14 at 14:15
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    Using desktops with app windows maximized and no menu bar seems to be the best possible option. Switching using ctrl+[0-9] is awesome! This answer is a great explanation for setting up multiple desktops. – Quinn Comendant Oct 05 '17 at 10:41
  • The most annoying thing for me is that it doesn't register the second press. I use workspaces a lot, and have my own workspace for every common task (relics from working in a tiling WM). I sometimes do mess up the number, go to workspace 6, then the animation already shows me I'm wrong, so I press ctrl+7, but that last one isn't registered while the animation is still playing... Then I start typing in the wrong program – sanderd17 Mar 18 '21 at 09:30
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    The check box should be labeled "Reduce motion sickness." – ATL_DEV Dec 02 '21 at 18:08

6 Answers6

189

I posted a bug on Radar#28495374 and here is the response from Apple:

Fixed in 10.12. Go to Accessibility and Turn on Reduce Motion…

Please let us know whether the issue is resolved for you by updating your bug report.

Reduce motion in Accessibility mac os 10.12

Community
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Dorian
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    This is great! I get dizzy otherwise. – amelia Oct 12 '16 at 03:56
  • Maybe related, but if you use "Reduce motion" on iPhone some features are not available (like the long press on iMessage send button) so Apple may do it on macOS too – Dorian Oct 12 '16 at 15:09
  • This is awesome! – Joop Nov 15 '16 at 21:59
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    Does this switch instantly? – Lenar Hoyt Dec 08 '16 at 22:21
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    @LenarHoyt Yes :) (there is a bit of fading / loading for like 100ms maybe) – Dorian Dec 09 '16 at 01:32
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    WOW! After the other comments I got completely disillusioned and sad about my macbook. Why won't Apple let me use my macbook productively?... Why must I suffer headache and confused dizziness from everything moving around all the time? Why should I wait for that? This helps. Really wish you could just disable animation in this case.. – Lodewijk Jan 12 '17 at 18:40
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    this should be the accepted answer. – Jinbom Heo Jul 05 '17 at 09:46
  • Somebody knows if I can switch this on with a command from the CLI? – lony Nov 24 '17 at 08:25
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    I wonder if we're able to get rid of the 100ms fade as well. – Cosmin Pascu Jun 20 '18 at 10:47
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    @LenarHoyt no, unfortunately this does not switch instantly. – Magnus Lind Oxlund Jul 05 '18 at 11:13
  • Finally, I can use desktops! :) – Misha Tavkhelidze Jul 19 '18 at 09:41
  • I've got my mac connected to an external monitor. For some reason, this works when the mac is closed, but as soon as I have the mac open, it reverts to the sliding animation. – rcorre Jun 24 '19 at 17:55
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    @CosminPascu I think there shouldn't be any technical difficulties for them to do so, as zero animation has already been a feature of totalspace2. Just wondering why apple wouldn't do this one last favor for us – hzh Oct 13 '19 at 01:00
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    how to get rid of the stupid 300ms fade – SuperUberDuper Dec 21 '19 at 13:31
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    That's very unfortunate. The Mac OS feature is useless with this strongly noticeable delay. That's a ridiculous amount of time and focus lost if I'm switching between desktops hundreds of times a day. The app some people are recommending also hasn't posted to their blog for over a year so not interested in trying that. https://xkcd.com/1205/ – Freewalker Jul 08 '20 at 19:05
  • this no longer appears to work in ventura 13.1 (22C65) – raylu Mar 06 '23 at 23:20
  • For me it works in Sonoma 14.0. – derFunk Dec 29 '23 at 05:55
112

I dug deep into the app using GDB but the results were disappointing. I don't think there is a way to do this currently. Here's what I learned:

First you can change the speed of switching into Mission Control (still called Expose in the prefs). To do that just enter this command:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0; killall Dock

And to go back to defaults run this command:

defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration; killall Dock

Secondly there's a reference in the binary to fps-spaceswitch (frames per second spaceswitch). I messed with this for a while and also tried variations on this such as spaceswitch-animation-duration without luck.

Unfortunately (at least as of 10.7.1) there does not appear to be a way to change any settings related to this animation.

I filled a bug for this with Apple. The Radar number is 10073864. I would encourage you to also file the report at https://bugreport.apple.com/. Note in your description that it is a duplicate of the above bug report number to help the support staff categorize and prioritize this bug.

Samuel Mikel Bowles
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    Instead of using an -int you can actually use a -float and set it to fractions. I set mine to 0.20, it is not nearly as jarring as setting it to 0 whereby it just flashes into place and sort of leaves an animation. – X-Istence Sep 09 '11 at 07:36
  • Were you able to find anything that handled the Command-M - motion blur effect in Mission Control? I just stumbled on that - it might be causing unintentional grief if some people have accidentally enabled that fine </ahem and clears throat again loudly for effect> piece of work. – bmike Sep 13 '11 at 20:34
  • I am glad you looked into this, but I am sad that the bounty got awarded when we still don't have an answer. – Sparr Jul 24 '12 at 20:14
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    another work around is to use double-tap-jump-back to quickly switch back to the last space you were using. to enable: defaults write com.apple.dock double-tap-jump-back -bool TRUE;killall Dock From: http://www.cultofmac.com/133205/use-a-secret-gesture-to-switch-to-the-previous-space-os-x-tips/#GfPSPXpjSQuLqMCH.99 – Cam Aug 30 '12 at 19:32
  • @Cam thanks very much for sharing that. works great. "annoyingly" (since we can't figure out a real setting to use) it's a noticeably faster transition than all the other methods! it settles much more quickly than using ctrl-arrow. – mh. Aug 31 '12 at 06:43
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    bug #15348128 filed – alxndr Oct 30 '13 at 02:17
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    ...and Apple has responded wontfix: "Engineering has determined that this is not to be fixed.

    If you have questions regarding the resolution of this issue, please update your bug report with them.

    We are now closing this bug report."

     – alxndr Oct 31 '13 at 18:55
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    bug num 16079706 filed. Just keep filing folks, they've gotta listen one day. – Patrick J Collins Feb 16 '14 at 14:15
  • It seems that TotalSpace2 does this by attaching a CFPlugin to the Dock. – Daniel Da Cunha Dec 23 '14 at 14:52
  • Filled a duplicate as 28495374, hope this will be solved, it's doable on Linux desktops... – Dorian Sep 27 '16 at 15:07
  • If you want to let others know the existence and status of bug reports you send to Apple, you can post your reports to Open Radar as well (about). – Rory O'Kane Oct 31 '16 at 21:38
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    is there a solution closer to 2022? this doesn't seem to work on the new M1 with macos Ventura – Ionel Lupu Nov 15 '22 at 13:36
48

I've just noticed that doing ctrl+[number] is noticeably faster than ctrl+→/← .

It's still animated but it does complete the animation in about half the time. I'm not sure if that helps but I'll throw that out there.

gentmatt
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David
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  • you, sir, win the internet. thankyou so much. another note is that when using ctrl + [number] it skips other desktops in between the current one and the [number]th one. – jammypeach May 22 '12 at 15:24
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    Great, thanks. As I usually use two spaces at most, I have replaced the numbers for arrows and now it is at least faster. – Harold Cavendish Aug 03 '12 at 19:08
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    unfortunately ctrl+number can't switch to fullscreen apps – Sparr Aug 07 '12 at 20:54
  • Ctrl+number works for full screen apps in 10.8.5 Note that you have to enable the Ctrl-number shortcuts in the System Preferences Keyboard panel and you can only do so for 1-4. – Perry Feb 05 '14 at 19:12
  • Cmd + tab is the fastest I could find for switching full-screen apps –  Jan 15 '16 at 02:12
  • I just have an option to activate shortcut to "switch to Desktop 1" but not the other ones. Any idea? – Deniz Feb 03 '17 at 13:08
  • This answer is a great explanation for setting up multiple desktops. Using desktops with app windows maximized and no menu bar seems to be the best possible option. Switching using ctrl+[0-9] is awesome! – Quinn Comendant Oct 05 '17 at 10:41
45

TotalSpaces has an option to disable the animation for changing spaces:

TotalSpaces is still in beta and a bit glitchy though. There's a small delay before changing spaces, and the whole screen seems to move a few pixels horizontally during the transition. Edit: both of those have now been fixed.

Lri
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  • This app sure is promising - I hope more people find it and help shake out the remaining bugs. It's a really nice power user tool and solves a hole in window management if you come from other WM to Mac. – bmike May 16 '12 at 19:29
  • This is awesome. The single row of space drove me crazy enough when lion came out that I briefly considered implementing something like this, but didn't get around to it. Here's to hoping it gets fixed in Mountain Lion but in the meantime, I'm shelling the $12 to register this app. – Noah May 17 '12 at 01:56
  • The delay before reacting to a keypress is a deal breaker for me, but I'll be watching this app for better performance in the future. – Sparr Jul 24 '12 at 19:55
  • I tried totalspaces. It works really well, when it works. It seems to get confused when I add/remove spaces, and it won't ctrl-rightarrow properly through all the spaces/fullscreen apps. – Gattster Aug 09 '12 at 01:37
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    @Sparr: (At least) in 0.11.0 you can eliminate the delay via TS's preferences by unchecking Use transitions in the Transitions tab and unchecking Show notification graphic on desktop change on the General tab. @Gattster: Make sure the layout settings on the Layout tab match the actual number of desktops defined and that Navigate right to additional full screen apps is checked. For full-screen app integration with multiple desktops, use the Advanced tab. NOTE: Whenever you change the number of desktops via Mission Control, you need do make corresponding changes in TotalSpaces. – mklement0 Sep 11 '12 at 02:30
  • This worked brilliantly for me in Mountain Lion. Be sure to un-bind the OS-level shortcuts for desktop switching. – Christian Oudard Sep 12 '12 at 18:46
  • @mklement Upgrading from 0.10.0 to 0.11.0 eliminated most of the delay, and unchecking "Show notification graphic on desktop change" got rid of the rest. Thanks for the tip! – Sparr Sep 12 '12 at 18:55
  • Totalspaces wont work in el capitan without disabling security. How would you do it in el capitan? – The Unfun Cat Sep 28 '15 at 06:31
  • Totalspaces only works with El Capitan when you modify system integrity protection, which is not an option for many. Sad because this is the only reason I have been using it. – Heath Dutton Jan 11 '16 at 18:35
  • This does not seem to work in my Mac OS Yosemite. Transitions are still there. And General tab in Preferences takes ages to update. It gets stuck many times. – nephewtom Jan 17 '16 at 10:24
  • Although it needs disabling security, it works for my case (10.11). When using alt tab to switch between apps in different desktops, the transition is immediate now because I disabled animation through TotalSpaces. – Jos Jan 05 '18 at 08:37
  • works well on 10.13 high sierra, with crsutil disabled during install. The free version is a 14d trial. Full app at 12$, not expensive, but I'm not comfortable for the time being to pay 12$ to remove a fade animation – codrut Feb 27 '18 at 11:12
  • Checking in from macOS Big Sur 11.6 in Nov 2021 - this app still works brilliantly to remove the delay when switching desktops. I had to run csrutil disable in Recovery Mode, and I also have "Reduce Motion" enabled if that makes a difference. Big thanks all around. – Shane Creighton-Young Oct 28 '21 at 18:23
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    Doesn't work anymore. Don't upgrade to Monterey. – Axel Prieto Jan 12 '22 at 13:02
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    Doesn't work with Ventura 13+ – Andrew Nodermann Jan 18 '23 at 11:53
13

I noticed that it is possible to control the speed of the space-change animation when you use the Swipe gesture in OS X Lion. You can make the spaces change as fast, if not faster, than they did in Snow Leopard by doing a quick three-finger or four-finger swipe to the left or the right. Of course, it's definitely something to get accostomed to if you've always used ⌘+→/←.

This did get me thinking. Since it seems that changing spaces via arrow keys, number keys, and gestures all perform the same type of animation, there is likely a single system command that all three of these actions map to. Additionally, since they all perform the animation at a different speed, there must be a parameter that controls the animation speed. I'm not an OS X developer, so hopefully someone else with a better knowledge of the underlying functionality of OS X would be able to determine what system commands are actually running when the user performs a certain action.

gentmatt
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sffc
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    The finger swipe actually is faster when you swipe faster. It goes the same speed of your hand for the most part. Obviously this is an Apple knows best kind of decision - it feels natural until you use it for a long time and get sea sick! – ktamlyn May 27 '13 at 13:06
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    Frustratingly, it seems that Monterey made the threshold of what counts as this "fast" swipe a lot stricter compared to Big Sur. I have to basically throw my whole arm into it if I want it to work now. – 2rs2ts May 10 '22 at 21:23
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    For me it's not the speed of the swipe, it's the time-to-interactive that's the issue. Once I've animated the swipe, I'm still waiting for a second for the end 'ease' compulsory part of the animation, before the content of the desktop / windows becomes interactive, and it's infuriating! – Matthew Trout Sep 01 '22 at 10:20
1

Rather than using Spaces, I have found that switching among non-fullscreen apps using the Alfred app is 'instant'. I create a key binding using shift+ctrl plus a letter for each app (e.g. e for Excel, w for Word, etc.). I have been doing this for years and the experience is truly instant.

If you put the apps in fullscreen mode, you still get the animation, so you still need to do Accessibility->Reduce Motion. In that case the app switching with Alfred is faster than using ctrl->arrow, but not as instant as it is if you avoid fullscreen.

Timothy C. Lethbridge
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