How to prevent Safari from opening on the wrong desktop?

[ideal.dreams]

I use dual displays and since 10.9's dual display support, every time I open a new Safari window, it opens it on the desktop I used the dock icon on. This is incredibly annoying because I prefer to have it on my other monitor and dragging the window over every time I open Safari is going to be horrible.

I don't want to open Safari from the dock on my other monitor because then the window gets cut off and I end up dragging it down anyways.

Is there a setting I missed to dictate where windows should open?

 

[obeliq]

I have not been able to figure out how to change this behaviour, except for reverting back to 10.8 style multi-monitor support (no dual full screen apps, no dual menu bar).

If you uncheck 'Displays have separate spaces' under sysprefs/mission control, it will go back to 10.8 style, and remember which display you want your application to open on.

I hope they change this, or make it optional.

edit:

some progress being made.. posted in this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1659069/

 

[ideal.dreams]

I have not been able to figure out how to change this behaviour, except for reverting back to 10.8 style multi-monitor support (no dual full screen apps, no dual menu bar).

If you uncheck 'Displays have separate spaces' under sysprefs/mission control, it will go back to 10.8 style, and remember which display you want your application to open on.

I hope they change this, or make it optional.

edit:

some progress being made.. posted in this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1659069/

I don't want to go back to the old way multiple displays were handled. Using an app in full screen on one display would mean every other display would be blank and unusable which is even more annoying than the issue at hand.

There is currently no fix to this issue until Apple addresses it, hopefully in 10.9.1 and soon.

 

[benwiggy]

There is currently no fix to this issue until Apple addresses it, hopefully in 10.9.1 and soon.

1. Go to Mission Control.
2. Add a space to either of the monitors.
3. Now when you right-click on an app in the Dock, you can set which monitor ("space") you want each app to open in.

 

[ideal.dreams]

1. Go to Mission Control.
2. Add a space to either of the monitors.
3. Now when you right-click on an app in the Dock, you can set which monitor ("space") you want each app to open in.

Doesn't work - only opens the window on the other desktop. It still moves its position and resizes the window. Definitely not a fix.

 

[freedevil]

Doesn't work - only opens the window on the other desktop. It still moves its position and resizes the window. Definitely not a fix.

You need to right click the app in the dock and select Options --> this desktop

That should work and is working on my machine.

 

[benwiggy]

Doesn't work - only opens the window on the other desktop. It still moves its position and resizes the window. Definitely not a fix.

I don't understand. Can you explain what you want and what happens in greater detail.
With the method I've outlined, I can have any application loading windows into whatever monitor I set.
Safari opens for me in one monitor only. Other apps open in the other monitor only.

 

[ideal.dreams]

You need to right click the app in the dock and select Options --> this desktop

That should work and is working on my machine.

I don't have an option for "this desktop." These are my options:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tghzriqk5bsxxeb/Screenshot 2013-10-26 14.11.33.png

I don't understand. Can you explain what you want and what happens in greater detail.
With the method I've outlined, I can have any application loading windows into whatever monitor I set.
Safari opens for me in one monitor only. Other apps open in the other monitor only.

I want the app to remember the EXACT position and size of its window the LAST time it was used. The ONLY way I can get it to open exactly the way I left it is to launch it with Spotlight search from the desktop I want it open in.

 

[benwiggy]

I don't have an option for "this desktop." These are my options:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tghzriqk5bsxxeb/Screenshot 2013-10-26 14.11.33.png

The picture you have shows what I have. Choosing "Desktop on Display 1" puts Safari in Monitor 1, and choosing "Desktop on Display 2" puts Safari in monitor 2.
Safari maintains the same window size whenever a new window opens.

 

[ideal.dreams]

The picture you have shows what I have. Choosing "Desktop on Display 1" puts Safari in Monitor 1, and choosing "Desktop on Display 2" puts Safari in monitor 2.
Safari maintains the same window size whenever a new window opens.

I know what the options do, hence the reason I have "Desktop on Display 2" selected.

Safari does not maintain the same window size or position for me using this option. It will only open the window on my secondary display; it will NOT remember its last used window size or the position it was on the screen.

 

[benwiggy]

If I size and position a Safari window, and then close it, new windows reflect those options. If that's not happening for you, then you might have a corrupt .plist in your user Preferences folder that needs deleting.

 

[ideal.dreams]

If I size and position a Safari window, and then close it, new windows reflect those options. If that's not happening for you, then you might have a corrupt .plist in your user Preferences folder that needs deleting.

That doesn't work for me. No matter how much I resize the window and move it to where I want it, it's disregarded every time I open the app after that.

Any idea where that .plist file is?

Edit: I deleted all of Safari's .plist files located in ~/Library/Preferences and that did nothing. This is clearly an issue with Mavericks as this happens with other apps too, not just Safari.

 

[benwiggy]

Any idea where that .plist file is?

Edit: I deleted all of Safari's .plist files located in ~/Library/Preferences and that did nothing. This is clearly an issue with Mavericks as this happens with other apps too, not just Safari.

Not necessarily, if other people aren't experiencing the same thing. I've not seen anything like this on the AppleSeed forums all through the preview period.

Have you restarted? Mavx caches lots of stuff, so crude alterations to prefs don't always kick in.

Another useful test would be to see what happens in a brand new user account. That will confirm whether it's system-wide or user-based.

You haven't got any third-party stuff that might be interfering with windows?

 

[ideal.dreams]

Not necessarily, if other people aren't experiencing the same thing. I've not seen anything like this on the AppleSeed forums all through the preview period.

Have you restarted? Mavx caches lots of stuff, so crude alterations to prefs don't always kick in.

Another useful test would be to see what happens in a brand new user account. That will confirm whether it's system-wide or user-based.

You haven't got any third-party stuff that might be interfering with windows?

I shut down my MacBook every night so it's been restarted several times since this issue started appearing.

I don't have any third-party apps that would be interfering and even if I did, this was not a problem on Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard.

Other people are experiencing the same thing - there's another thread in this sub-forum where someone's having the same issue with Mail. It's an issue with Mavericks and the only solutions are to use Spotlight or disable the new multiple displays feature and go back to how they were handled with ML and prior.

 

[benwiggy]

It's an issue with Mavericks and the only solutions are to use Spotlight or disable the new multiple displays feature and go back to how they were handled with ML and prior.

You seem to have convinced yourself that no solution might exist.
Have you tried the new user account?

 

[ideal.dreams]

You seem to have convinced yourself that no solution might exist.
Have you tried the new user account?

I spent a few hours on the phone with a senior advisor from Apple and that's why I'm convinced. I'll try the other user account later on but I'm pretty sure there is no fixing this unless Apple releases an update that does.

 

[Manfred05]

After 7 months of tyranny from Apple (who provided no help) and their macOS Sonoma, I finally fixed the problem.
Simply enter the following commands into Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO
killall Dock

This will stop the desktops from automatically switching. Shame on you, Apple!