How do you disable the window switch animation when switching spaces with Mission Control?

In Snow Leopard, I had the window switch animation disabled when I quick-key between spaces. Now that it's Mission Control in Lion, there's a long animation during which all my desktop icons disappear and I can't use anything. I'd really like to disable this, but the old fix doesn't appear to work.

How can I disable this needless animation in OS X Lion or later?

Dan Lew

Posted 2011-07-27T02:12:59.893

Reputation: 449

Possible duplicate of Speed up OSX Spaces by reducing or eliminating the animation delay?

– Evan Carroll – 2019-04-09T21:28:33.047

There is no reason to have a different version of this question for each version of OSX. – Evan Carroll – 2019-04-09T21:29:34.433

1If you use the 3-finger swipe on the trackpad, the animation can go much faster. But I'm usually using an external keyboard & mouse, and I agree that the animation for the keyboard shortcut is painfully slow. – John Douthat – 2011-07-27T19:20:44.407

Unfortunately I mostly use my mac in clamshell mode with an external keyboard, monitor and mouse. – Dan Lew – 2011-07-27T20:26:30.047

– Mathias Bynens – 2011-07-30T18:40:26.693

I have the same problem and question. Found a solution? – Matt – 2011-10-08T12:58:13.997

Answers

You can disable the animations with TotalSpaces (born ReSpaceApp). Just uncheck the Use transitions checkbox in TotalSpaces preferences.

Total Spaces integrates with Mission Control's multiple desktop system and adds extensive customisation, including disabling animations or adjusting the speed.

It's compatible with OS X 10.10 but requires disabling System Integrity Protection on OS X 10.11.

0xced

Posted 2011-07-27T02:12:59.893

Reputation: 521

great answer! None of other answers works for me, only this works! – Siwei Shen 申思维 – 2015-10-07T12:53:43.190

1those apps are not free, I can do this easily with ubuntu and I don't understand why we should pay for TotalSpaces – Fabrizio Bertoglio – 2019-07-04T04:25:40.797

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/255220/337005 – Fabrizio Bertoglio – 2019-07-04T04:26:39.930

For me as well. After almost a year, we finally have a solution! – Trevor Powell – 2012-04-16T07:45:53.550

Change the delay when dragging windows or applications within Spaces.

Launch the Terminal and enter the following at the command line:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.1

The number on the end represents the wait time - the default is set to 0.75 (or 3/4 of a second), so 0.5 is half a second, 0.1 is a tenth of a second, and so on. If you use the above command and 0.1 you’ll get a near instant switching of spaces.

If you want to revert to the default setting, just specify it as so:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.75

Joe Wells

Posted 2011-07-27T02:12:59.893

Reputation: 81

I'll give this a vote because it is helpful, but it's still not a solution proper yet. – Dan Lew – 2011-09-08T16:41:16.037

You can disable the animation that shows up when you launch mission control with this

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -int 0; killall Dock

and undo with

defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration; killall Dock

If you'd like to keep the animation, but speed it up, you can do this instead

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.1; killall Dock

I don't know how to disable the annoying sliding animation when moving between spaces without using mission control, though--as was mentioned above, using ctrl+1, ctrl+2, ... does make that animation a lot faster.

spnkr

Posted 2011-07-27T02:12:59.893

Reputation: 245

1Did not work on 10.10 – Robert Karl – 2015-11-02T21:59:52.350

Does this article relate to your problem ?

It advocates this command :

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool NO

For desktop switching, I quote from How can I disable animation when switching desktops in Lion? :

I've just noticed that doing Control+Number is noticeably faster than Control+Arrow. It's still animated but it does complete the animation in about half the time.

Sadly, Mission Control hasn't yet been modified (or the secret preferences to tweak it haven't yet been baked in or discovered.)

You really have no choice other than staying on 10.6 or seeking an alternate window manager like hyperspaces.

harrymc

Posted 2011-07-27T02:12:59.893

Reputation: 306 093

That pertains to the individual window animation, not desktop switching (aka virtual desktops). – Dan Lew – 2011-07-31T13:44:38.417

Added some more stuff. – harrymc – 2011-07-31T16:18:15.537

2You can add all you want, but I won't accept it unless you answer the question. – Dan Lew – 2011-07-31T21:02:47.627

4Some questions have only negative answers. Your question may have been posted too early, and the full answer is not yet known. At this time, I can't do better than the above, but you have of course the right to wait for a better answer or accept none. – harrymc – 2011-08-01T05:40:35.230