How to avoid multiple desktops?

System Preferences > Mission Control is the where you will control the behavior of desktops and spaces on your Mac.

When using desktops in Mission Control, the key to maximizing your efficiency and controlling the clutter from desktop to desktop is to assign each application you use to a particular desktop space.

These Apple Support documents will get you started:

Work in multiple spaces on Mac - Apple Support 

Use Mission Control on your Mac - Apple Support:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204100

If you assign an app (or System Preferences) to a specific space, the app will always open in that space.

1. On your Mac, press and hold an app’s icon in the Dock. 
2. You may need to first open the app to see its icon in the Dock.
3. From the shortcut menu that appears, choose Options, then choose one of the following Assign To options:

• All Desktops: The app opens in every space.
• This Desktop: The app opens only in the current space. If you use the app full screen, it appears in its own space.
• Desktop on Display [number]: The app opens in the current space on a specific display (if more than one display is available).
• None: The app opens in whichever space you’re using at the time

Once you grasp this, and especially when combined with trackpad gestures, spaces and Mission Control become awesome productivity tools.

The key to productivity and clarity when using desktops and spaces is the assignment of apps to their respective spaces.

Open your Mission Control app (Applications folder) or press F3 on the keyboard.

Move the cursor to the top of your screen so you see a thumbnails of the Desktops in use.

For each Desktop you want to remove, move the cursor to it and press the 'x' in the top left corner of the Desktop thumbnail.

rccharles wrote:

I wasn't clear. I decided I don't want to mess with spaces. I want to turn it off.

You need to go into preferences > mission control and assigned mission control invocation key to some key. I picked control + up arrow key.

click on desktop #2

move all the windows to desktop #1

click on the x on desktop #2

Now, when I move a chrome window to the right edge of screen it stays on desktop #1

I don't have to hassle with this desktop thing. I guess this could be a good thing, but I use keyboard maestro. I have all my popular apps assigned to function keys. I have f2 to mail. f4 to firefox. command f4 to chrome. etc. So I would not gain much benefit with spaces.

R

That's correct. The default activation key for Mission Control is control+up arrow (or F3).

Once activated, you needn't have moved apps to other desktops to delete the extras. Simply clicking on the X of the desktop under the mouse will have deleted it and cancelled its active role.

The thing I love about desktops is I can have all the apps open, windows and all, at the same time. And with a swipe on the trackpad or a keystroke I can be smack in the middle of the app I want to use.

Regardless, I'm glad you got it sorted out, my friend.

Take care. 🙂

“Is there a way of using spaces but turn off drag window to a different workspace?”

Absolutely.

Start by creating a second desktop. Then click into that desktop to make it the active desktop. Now, right-click on the dock icon for any app of your choosing, click Option > Assign to > This Desktop.

The app and its windows will now always open in that particular window, leaving the clutter of all other apps behind on desktop 1, for example.

Create as many desktops as you like and assign each of your favorite apps to their own desktop. Then switch among them by swiping on your trackpad or using a keystroke to recall that desktop.

Or, even better, just use the Command-tab shortcut to switch to any of your open apps in their respective space.

And another cool feature is you can assign a different desktop picture to each desktop to help visually identify each space.

Follow up - To clarify, I guess there really is no way to disable the ability to drag a window from one desktop to the next. But the fix is this: if you do accidentally drag from one to the other, just drag the window back the opposite way to the previous desktop. The desktops only switch when the cursor hits the edge of the display. You can still nearly hide a window at the side of you drag it there by its titlebar but don't allow the cursor to hit the edge.