How to get classic Exposé back on macOS

What classic Exposé did

Exposé had three keys. F9 spread out every open window on screen at once, F10 did the same for the windows of the app you were using, and F11 pushed everything aside to show the desktop. Windows were scaled down only as much as they had to be, so you could usually read what was in them and click the right one.

Mac OS X Lion merged Exposé and Spaces into Mission Control. The overview gained a row of desktops along the top, windows were grouped by app, and on a busy screen they shrank into what one user called little tiny unusable thumbnails. The three actions are still there, under new names: Mission Control, Application windows (better known as App Exposé) and Show Desktop.

Get closer to Exposé with built-in settings

None of these need extra software. Each one removes a difference between Mission Control and the old Exposé.

1. Stop grouping windows by app

   System Settings, Desktop & Dock, Mission Control: turn off Group windows by application. Windows are then laid out one by one instead of stacked in piles per app, which is the single biggest step towards the old look.

2. Keep your desktops in a fixed order

   In the same place, turn off Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use. Desktops stop moving around, so muscle memory has something to hold on to.

3. Put the three actions back on keys

   System Settings, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, Mission Control lists Mission Control, Application windows and Show Desktop. Give them the keys you remember, F9, F10 and F11 if you go back that far. To press F-keys without holding fn, turn on Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys under Keyboard Shortcuts, Function Keys.

4. Bring back the hot corners

   System Settings, Desktop & Dock, Hot Corners. Set one corner to Mission Control, one to Application Windows and one to Desktop, the way many people had Exposé set up.

5. Use App Exposé for one app

   Control and Down Arrow spreads out the windows of the active app, and so does a swipe down with three or four fingers. Our guide to App Exposé on Mac covers every way to trigger it and why it sometimes seems not to work.

What you cannot change: the row of desktops on top, how small windows get on a crowded screen, and choosing a window from the keyboard. Mission Control still expects you to point and click.

What broke in macOS 27 Golden Gate

Soon after macOS 27 shipped, Mission Control became one of its most criticised parts. Three tech publications collected the reports.

• TechRadar quoted users who described Mission Control as broken: sluggish, juddering animations, an unresponsive black screen left behind after dragging a desktop to another monitor, and black screens when switching to a full-screen app. It also noted that plenty of people found the release smooth.
• MacGeneration (in French) listed minimized windows that no longer appear, a freeze of about a second before switching to another desktop, a selection in the row of desktops that drifts to the left on its own, which gets in the way of Control and arrow navigation, and desktops that show up completely black.
• OS X Daily described lag and stutter entering Mission Control or Stage Manager, flickering thumbnails, window thumbnails that fail to draw, and black or empty Spaces, especially with more than one display.

On social media people put it more bluntly. They write that on a second display clicking a window does not select it, that App Exposé is entirely busted, and that this is such a core feature of macOS it should never have shipped that way. Some went as far as going back to Sequoia.

If Mission Control misbehaves for you

OS X Daily suggests a few adjustments that helped some users. They are cheap to try and easy to undo:

• Turn on Reduce Transparency in System Settings, Accessibility, Display.
• Turn on Reduce Motion in System Settings, Accessibility, Motion.
• Turn off Automatically hide and show the Dock in Desktop & Dock.
• Install every available macOS update, and update the apps you use most.
• Give a fresh install a few days: background indexing can slow the interface down.

And tell Apple. The macOS feedback page takes reports without a developer account.

Apps that bring Exposé back

If the settings above are not enough, an overview app can show your windows its own way. None of them repair Mission Control: they open their own layout on their own shortcut, and the system feature stays as it is.

It is not the only option. Some people prefer a window switcher in the style of Windows Alt-Tab, and several good ones are free and open source. Others use utilities that add features on top of Mission Control. Which one fits depends on whether you want a big overview of everything or a quick list of windows on a key. Try a couple and keep the one your hands remember.