I'm sure this has been done before, but why doesn't The World's Most Advanced OS remember window positions?

[seggy]

Most of my desktop Macs are on a triple monitor setup - typically 4K/5K/4K, and what is absolutely infuriating is that

a) The title. Pretty much all apps prefer to launch on the main monitor and often in an arbitrary location even there. You need a bunch of third party tools (in my case Magnet along with Display Maid) installed to even make it halfway usable, and it's still far from what I've always felt is Actually The World's Most Advanced Productivity OS from Redmond does with zero third party kludges.

b) Thunderbolt operation is less reliable in MacOS than in Boot Camp, screwing up monitors far more often. That's correct, I get less problems running Windows on Macs in terms of monitors staying put than the native OS. It's incredible.

Maybe b) is something that can't be resolved, but can someone point me to settling a) once and for all, because it is so basic and so core to everyday productivity. And it drives me bananas every time I turn on one of my Macs in MacOS.

 

[icanhazmac]

Same issue but odd twists. My setup is a 2017 MBP in clamshell with 2 Dell 1440 external monitors, one is usbc to DP the other is usbc to HDMI. Some apps will open to their last spot IF I am active on that screen, mail and calendar mostly. Then I will try to open others that should position below the others on the same screen but they open on the other screen but in the correct position.

I agree that this is something any OS should be able to handle easily in 2021.

 

[Honza1]

This is likely feature, not bug.
Preferred window positions behavior is very user specific. Behavior of some W10 and some macOS applications which implement this feature make me scream at the computer and cry. And, unluckily, not always this behavior can be disabled. Considering that my mac number of displays and their resolution changes all the time I really cannot imagine how macOS could handle the window restoration in sensible way. I have some applications which fail miserably with Spaces due to multiple windows. Nightmare...
And for some applications which have this feature (on macOS) I really wish they implemented some way of disabling this. So while I understand that under your situation this would be preferred feature, I suspect there are few of us who would find this feature highly undesirable.
Considering number of options how applications can render one or many windows on various Spaces, this really needs to be implemented by application - if it really needs to be implemented at all. And note, if any programmer reads this - PLEASE, make sure this thing can be disabled. Opening window outside of existing physical display has been the most frustrating experience I had.

 

[tranceking26]

Yeah this is one of my few negatives with macOS. I've learnt to just automatically resize the moment anything opens "wrong" - could have sworn windows 7 remembered these sizes more often than not.

 

[elptdbi3lYI]

a) Preferences -> General -> Uncheck "Close windows when quitting an app" or quit applications with cmd+opt+q

 

[panjandrum]

Interestingly (ok, not interestingly, very annoyingly) window management, especially across multiple monitors is one of those features that has been slowly borked over the years by Apple. It used to be much better (you could even stretch a single window across multiple monitors if you wanted to, instead of the frustrating cut-off-window-mess Apple now gives you). Macs "back in the olden days" did remember window positions pretty darn well. Ultimately, unless we luck-out and get someone truly brilliant and detail oriented to the point of being OCD spearheading UI design at Apple (or elsewhere), I think we are stuck long-term with UIs that are far from excellent. It's such an important aspect of computing, and yet everyone seems to have given up and just gone with "well, that's just barely good enough, and we're find with that." In the case of Apple, there has been tremendous backsliding in many areas, and you've just point out one of them.

 

[Nermal]

you could even stretch a single window across multiple monitors if you wanted to

Turn off "each display is its own Space" (or something to that effect) and it should work again. Granted I haven't tried this in the current OS but I assume it's still there.

 

[seggy]

a) Preferences -> General -> Uncheck "Close windows when quitting an app" or quit applications with cmd+opt+q

Yeah as I found out a while back the effect of that is quite interesting - in that it will often completely change where your windows appear compared to not checking it, but it still won't be right most of the time just like leaving it checked 🤣

 

[Ritsuka]

It's up to the applications' developers to save the windows position. It's usually 1 line of code, but many don't care.

 

[Fuchal]

I use Display Maid, and it works well, but I do agree that it should be automatic.

 

[panjandrum]

Turn off "each display is its own Space" (or something to that effect) and it should work again. Granted I haven't tried this in the current OS but I assume it's still there

Good point. It is still there (as of Mojave I haven't looked in Catalina (skipping due to it being so buggy) or Big Sur) yet, but unfortunately selecting it breaks other functionality; you can't go full-screen without blacking out all other screens, so it's not really a usable function if you use any apps where full-screen is actually beneficial (such as any VM; where you might want to dedicate an entire screen to an alternate OS).

But this example does at least somewhat help to illustrate the point of the OP: Why is this considered acceptable? It shouldn't be. If you purchase a car do you expect the windshield wipers to be disabled if the radio is playing (well, maybe if it's a classic British model 😂 )? It's the kind of "just barely good enough is fine with us" mentality that pisses off long-term Mac users.

In the end, I now think our best hope currently is for a fourth contender to come along with something so strong it destroys expectations of how good a UI can be all over again, the way Apple used to do it, and sells well enough that it forces Apple, Microsoft and Google to sit up and pay attention. Right now it's just a three-way race to the bottom, or at least a three-way-race to total mediocrity.

(I haven't heard of Display Maid - I'm going to look into that!)

 

[star-affinity]

I must say I agree multiple monitors is handled better in Windows 10.

New windows not always coming up were expected in macOS.

Just the fact that the Task Bar show up on all displays – the Dock on macOS is just shown on the ”main” display, the one with the white menu bar in:

System Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement

Well, if you have it at the bottom that is. If you have the Dock positioned at the left or right side it ends up on the rightmost side of the rightmost display and vice versa when it's on the left.

Also, in Windows 10 it is possible to disable a monitor as if it were disconnected despite being physically connected to the computer. Can be handy for my setup at home at times.

 

[ALB13]

Sadly, I've been fighting this multiple-monitor-multiple-spaces problem since I moved from Windows to Mac 2+ years ago. Still no solution.

Here's what's the developer of Display Maid said re: no support for spaces. Not a good sign for ANY solution to this problem if Apple doesn't provide the necessary info to developers.

Have you found anything that helps @seggy ?

 

[flowrider]

It sorta does. I have ten SSDs in my NcMP 7.1. If the disk has an OS and is bootable, the window opens where it chooses👎 But, if it's a data only disk with no apps or OS, it will open where you choose and the window will be sized as you want it👍

This is DUMB DUMB IMHO👎👎👎👎

Lou

 

[seggy]

Sadly, I've been fighting this multiple-monitor-multiple-spaces problem since I moved from Windows to Mac 2+ years ago. Still no solution.

Here's what's the developer of Display Maid said re: no support for spaces. Not a good sign for ANY solution to this problem if Apple doesn't provide the necessary info to developers.

View attachment 1994013

Have you found anything that helps @seggy ?

Nope. The solution to a productivity first OS has been basically Windows for me. I only use my Macs as Macs when I need to - and they've been useful up til now despite that because they can be Boot Camped when I'm not using MacOS.

I'm taking a very long look right now at whether I should still be sitting on the fence. It's pretty likely I'll reduce down to a single ARM Mac from now on.

 

[Ben J.]

I'm pretty happy with how I can manage screens and spaces on my 50"TV and 32" Benq.
In short:
I have "Identical screens" deselected.
(I often want it enabled temporarily, and the shortcut is cmnd-F1.)
In Mission Control sys prefs have "Screens have their own spaces", and "Group windows by application" (Not shure of the translation here).
I right-click on an application icon in the dock, and in "Options" select the secreen and space I want its windows to be assigned to.
I organize spaces all the time with F3 - Mission Control.
The "Group windows…" option enabled, lets you see a app icon for each app, which you can drag to any other space, and all its open windows will follow.
There is lots more:

Use Mission Control on your Mac - Apple Support​

Added: for some reason, the options menu when right-clicking the app in dock, doesn't show up when there are few spaces. Just create a empty space or two and it will show.

 

[MrSmartguy]

One would think that Apple - a multi-trillion dollar technology company that is SO into the way things 'Just work...' and the way things LOOK (look at their stores and what they brag about at every single one of their announcement 'Events') would give this whole 'Window positioning' issue some time. Guess they have more important things to do... like making trillions of dollars in profit... never mind working on a simple feature - that is there by DEFAULT for quite some time now in Windows 7(?), Windows 8/10/11.