MacOS Sierra animations.. how to remove?

[moophone]

Is there any way in Sierra to disable the animation delay of transitioning between mission control virtual desktops? Currently I use 4 finger swipe on the trackpad. Its annoyingly slow with (often juddery) animation. So much that I am considering moving away from MacOS for my next work laptop purchase as I need quickly swap between these spaces all the time and its just too slow.

There used to be an app, TotalSpaces that allowed you to remove this annoyance, but that went away with rootless, and I don't feel like undoing that.

Any other defaults write commands anyone is aware of to remove/reduce other animations if there is no solution for the desktop animations? I've seen several threads from older OSX releases, but they no longer work.

BTW I tried "reduce motion" in Accessibility, but the overall time to display is really no different. The only difference is a relatively long fades instead of the slide. There are also lots of artifacts when using this (sidebar for example).

Edit: I added hotkeys for the "Switch to Desktop5" using the keyboard pane which helps direct access, but they are still animated, and it doesn't work with other full screen apps (e.g. remote desktop) which are using spaces

 

[grahamperrin]

I dont have the OS running at the moment but for what it's worth, I found the speed of transition pleasant when I dragged something from one space to another by dragging the thing against the right edge of the screen.

Is the speed of animation any different when swiping with the trackpad?

 

[moophone]

I dont have the OS running at the moment but for what it's worth, I found the speed of transition pleasant when I dragged something from one space to another by dragging the thing against the right edge of the screen.

Is the speed of animation any different when swiping with the trackpad?

Interesting - yes it is different. The animation delay in dragging a window to the edge forcing it to open the next space would be acceptable for me (although I would personally even speed it up a bit more or eliminate it entirely).

Unfortunately the swipe and hotkey (control-left/right) is too slow.

 

[grahamperrin]

com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration

Amongst the defaults that can be changed; in an answer to Concise, compact list of all 'defaults' currently configured and their values? at Ask Different.

 

[moophone]

This is not correct - this does not apply to Sierra.

com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration

Amongst the defaults that can be changed; in an answer to Concise, compact list of all 'defaults' currently configured and their values? at Ask Different.

 

[mildocjr]

This doesn't sound like an appropriate answer, but use short quick strokes. You can put your fingers on the track pad and flick up and it will be as fast as it was.

 

[moophone]

I'm actually specifically referring to the switching between full screen desktops e.g. control-left/right.

 

[mildocjr]

There's a gesture for that too, 3 finger swipe, and again flick left or right.

 

[moophone]

(Four finger here). Its still too slow and juddery. It needs to be much faster.

I get that it may be fine for some, but I am constantly moving back and forth and all this extra time adds up. The same animation in windows 10 is faster yet smoother in comparison

 

[koifish22]

Not a full solution, but If you go into keyboard shortcuts in system prefs, there's shortcuts you can set for switching to different desktops; the animation is faster. Downside is that it doesn't work for full screen apps.

edit: ah didn't see your edit at the bottom :/

 

[moophone]

no worries - appreciate the suggestion

Not a full solution, but If you go into keyboard shortcuts in system prefs, there's shortcuts you can set for switching to different desktops; the animation is faster. Downside is that it doesn't work for full screen apps.

edit: ah didn't see your edit at the bottom :/

 

[moophone]

Using 12.1 public beta 1, I feel like they slightly improved the transitions with "reduce motion" enabled. Switching desktops is satisfactory for me.

Now.. if they could just fix the display glitches on the notification area with it enabled. Apple's test coverage really sucks.

 

[moophone]

FWIW, I'm finding 12.1 beta2 much more usable with reduce motion enabled. The overall experience is much snappier and direct with a quick fade-in/out and no annoying sliding. This is how it should have been out of the box. There are still a lot of visual glitches in the notification area but I'm hoping they will get worked out in a future release.