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Stage Manager: Are you using it?
- Thread starter Apple Knowledge Navigator
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From October last year:
I've not thought about Stage Manager, even once, since that, and I have no intention of trying it again in the foreseeable future.
I've not thought about Stage Manager, even once, since that, and I have no intention of trying it again in the foreseeable future.
Stage Manager seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. I fail to see a workflow where this makes my life easier.
I really wanted to like Stage Manager, but I found I was fighting it a lot.
I've been using Spaces (multiple desktops) for a long time, and usually try to put related things onto their own desktop. This is basically what Stage Manager does, so it should be a pretty analogous tool -- but I still find it kind of jarring when I click on a window and the other window I was using minimizes itself automatically.
I've been using Spaces (multiple desktops) for a long time, and usually try to put related things onto their own desktop. This is basically what Stage Manager does, so it should be a pretty analogous tool -- but I still find it kind of jarring when I click on a window and the other window I was using minimizes itself automatically.
I tried using it but as another member said before, spaces was much more efficient workflow for me. I also think people who use stage manager and find it helpful , probably never heard of spaces. I have all my apps covering the whole screen and keep switching back and forth using keyboard while at the same time holding items that i need to drop from one app to another. Superfast!
BUT. Whatever suits you should be the best. Try both and keep the one that does the job for you.
BUT. Whatever suits you should be the best. Try both and keep the one that does the job for you.
Haha same. I was scrolling saw this post and thought "Oh yeah, Stage Manager, that thing I played around with in a VM back in the beta days and then completely forgot about."
Perhaps I'll give it another go. My first impression wasn't great but that was partially due to it being kind of wonky inside the VM.
I tried it when I upgraded to Ventura, then shut it off. After a while, I tried it again and forced myself to use it for a few days. I shut it off again.
As I've said in previous posts about Stage Manager, the problem(s) it's trying to solve simply doesn't exist, at least not on a Mac. And there are just too many trade-offs for me to bother using it.
I suppose it's a nice alternative to Spaces/Mission Control for consumer-level users. But for pro use, it takes up too much screen real estate and breaks some other apps with Finder integration.
As I've said in previous posts about Stage Manager, the problem(s) it's trying to solve simply doesn't exist, at least not on a Mac. And there are just too many trade-offs for me to bother using it.
I suppose it's a nice alternative to Spaces/Mission Control for consumer-level users. But for pro use, it takes up too much screen real estate and breaks some other apps with Finder integration.
As far as I can tell it is much more useful for when you have limited screen real-estate. Even one 24” display makes Stage Manager not useful (to me).
I think you need to elaborate. Many productivity apps have a built-in 'focus' mode for this very reason, and windowing to focus on a document is simple with the dock.
I use it to have a tidy, efficient desktop.
I've been using multiple displays and Spaces forever.
I swipe between spaces with mostly main apps in fullscreen.
On desktop 1, I've always had Mail, Messages, notes, etc, and I used a little app called Quitter that let me set a time before these apps would auto-hide or quit to keep the desktop tidy.
With Stage Manager, this now works very nicely and I don't need Quitter anymore.
One utility visible at a time.
I set it to:
'Last used' (off), so it auto-hides and doesn't interfere with window positions.
'Show desktop items' (on).
But it surely is in its infancy. Looking forward to more customizability in the future.
I've been using multiple displays and Spaces forever.
I swipe between spaces with mostly main apps in fullscreen.
On desktop 1, I've always had Mail, Messages, notes, etc, and I used a little app called Quitter that let me set a time before these apps would auto-hide or quit to keep the desktop tidy.
With Stage Manager, this now works very nicely and I don't need Quitter anymore.
One utility visible at a time.
I set it to:
'Last used' (off), so it auto-hides and doesn't interfere with window positions.
'Show desktop items' (on).
But it surely is in its infancy. Looking forward to more customizability in the future.
With Stage Manger I especially like that I no longer need to struggle with countless buried windows, a pain in the ass I happily leave behind. Stage Manager allows me to do unprecedented things like drag open single documents from different apps to work on at the same time. In my experience, Mac users seem to be highly conservative in their workflow and not readily open to change of any kind. (I even have one client, a 25 year Mac user, who never wrapped his head around browser tabs and insists on starting over from a single new window every time - for him tabs are unnecessary gadgets that break his workflow!)
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Mac noob question. How do you drop items from one space to another? Like not just drop onto the app icon, but into a specific area in the app?
In windows, if you hold an item over the app's icon in the task bar ie dock for a sec, the app will be activated and brought to front. That doesn't seem to work in Mac
I tried it out for a few weeks at launch and just could not get used to it. Granted I've never really taken advantage of spaces either. It was too cumbersome for my muscle memory of how I use a Mac so I turned it off. Despite that, it just seemed unnecessary but I do appreciate the attempt & thought. It was cool to have something new like that to try out but not be forced to use.
I quote myself, and I stand by what I wrote.
But I just found out that macOS has had a built in function called 'single-application mode' since a decade or more, that does much of the same, but without the Stage manager icons menu. It simply sets the OS to hide all other apps when you select a new app from the Dock or option-tab.
Might not suit everybody, but it works for me. I can still have my main apps in full screen in different Spaces and they are unaffected. But on my desktop space, I like that only one app is showing at a time. It's simple and tidy. So, I don't need Stage Manager.
How to enable single-application mode on macOS
In terminal, paste:
Hit enter.
To disable single-application mode:
Change 'true' to 'false'.
This is a function deep in macOS and is totally harmless to try out.
See if you like it.
(I agree with those who say this should be a one-click option easily available.)
I like it - I just started using it about 2-3 weeks ago. Having the 5 most recent apps on the side in addition to what I have up works great for me, as I seem to concentrate on a set of apps that may vary over time - but the proper set ends up on the left side as I start into a new process. Dragging one or more apps to the center to work with 2 or 3 at a time works well for me too. It's cleaner than when I always had 12 apps open. Plus, I usually had to use Command-tab to find something because I usually had so many windows open, I can still do that if I need anything other than the "most recent 6" since I am so used to that. The little icons to identify the app are very effective. When I pause work I can click the desktop and everything goes to the left side, leaving a clean desktop - calming. It's simple, but it works well for me!
I have my Dock on the left side of screen (taking advantage of width over depth and without need of auto-hiding), and with that in place, rather than shifting over thumbnails over a bit to accommodate that, Stage Manager places them on right side, blotting out alias icons I have there. Stage Manager can 'turn off' these shortcuts - but then I lose access to them when using the app. Not helpful. Gave up on the application.
On the plus side, rediscovering the value of Mission Control.
On the plus side, rediscovering the value of Mission Control.
Don't know what it is.
Don't want to know what it is.
Haven't used it.
Not going to use it.
FWIW, those four lines apply to most new "features" Apple puts out. Just not interested in most of the crap it does.
What I WOULD be interested in is it cleaning up the features it already has, and stop doing lame crap that it already does.
Before Stage Manager I never used the Dock auto hide feature. The main reason was that the transition to display the dock was too slow. But it turns out there is a defaults setting that fixes that. Makes a huge difference for me.
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0;killall Dock