Is there any way to speed up the animation when you switch from one space to another on Mac OS X?
I'd like to make the space-transition quicker, or even instantaneous.
Does anybody know of any way to do this, or any software to do so?
17 Answers
This works on 10.7 (Mountain Lion) and below.
- Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
Copy and paste the following into the terminal window and then press enter:
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES && killall Dock
from hyperspace blog
1There is an option in MacOS that speeds up the animation somewhat although still not instant: On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Accessibility, then click Display > check "Reduce Motion".
If you can disable SIP, and you're using a modern version of OSX then you can accomplish this with the ChunkWM scripting addition.
It does this natively,
ability to switch active desktop instantly, bypassing the animation (High Sierra and Mojave)
As a side note, ChunkWM is open source. You can find the function responsible for the animation-less transitions here
1Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts, then click "Mission Control" in the sidebar. Scroll to the bottom of the list, and expand that "Mission Control" section. Now enable the keyboard shortcuts for all the desktops.
You can now switch to space 1, by pressing ctrl-1, space 2 by pressing ctrl-2, etc. Not only does this enable you to get to a space instantly without navigating past all the other spaces, the animation for this switch is significantly faster than the default space switching animation.
1This solution works in spite of being 10+ years old (just did it in Monterey on M1 chip). Don't forget to log out and back in.
4On my M1 Macbook Pro running Monterey, 12.3.1, this solution worked for me where others did not:
- Open Displays options in System Preferences
- Change
Refresh RatefromProMotionto60Hz.
It makes the animation speed the same as it is on Big Sur, on my Intel Macbook Pro. That is to say, it makes it significantly faster.
I believe that the chipset is not the difference, but rather, the OS version or the display type (because my machine running Big Sur does not have a Refresh Rate option for its display.)
On both OS versions, there is also a variant of the touch gesture for swapping spaces that makes the switch almost instant. However, it requires you to make a wider range of motion very quickly, and it is much more difficult to perform on my M1 machine than my Intel one. (Again, I believe the chipset is not the difference, but rather, the OS version or perhaps the trackpad itself.) If changing the refresh rate is not good enough for you, then this gesture is your only recourse.
2There is a utility app you can installed called Hyperspaces that adds features to Spaces. 6 days ago, there was an preview build from the developer which added an option to turn off Core Animation.
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