Faster switching in Mission Control on Mac

If jumping between desktops feels sluggish, it helps to know there are actually two animations at work — the zoom when you open Mission Control, and the sideways slide when you move directly between spaces. They are controlled by different settings, so the complete fix is two steps: shorten the zoom with a hidden Dock key, and speed the slide with the Reduce Motion accessibility setting.

Two different animations

Getting this right means matching the fix to the motion that is bugging you:

• The zoom plays when you open Mission Control or App Exposé — windows shrink out to the overview. This is set by the hidden Dock key expose-animation-duration.
• The slide plays when you switch straight to the next desktop with Control+Right/Left or a three-finger swipe — the whole screen slides across. This is not controlled by that key, and it has no clean preference of its own.

Speed both and space switching feels quick from every angle.

Speed the Mission Control zoom

The zoom defaults to about 0.2 seconds. Halve it in Terminal:

# Faster Mission Control / App Exposé zoom
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.1
# Restart the Dock to apply
killall Dock

Undo by deleting the key, which restores the macOS default rather than a value you guessed:

# Undo the zoom change
defaults delete com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration
killall Dock

Speed the space-to-space slide

The slide has no duration key, but Reduce Motion replaces it with a near-instant cross-fade — the single most effective way to make direct space switching feel fast. This is an accessibility setting, and a different thing from the Dock tweak above, though they pair well:

1. Open System Settings → Accessibility.
2. Click Display.
3. Switch on Reduce motion.

Now Control+Arrow and swipe-to-switch fade between desktops almost instantly instead of sliding. Turn the same switch off to bring the slide back. It behaves the same on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia. Reduce Motion also quiets other animations system-wide — a plus if you want a calmer Mac, worth knowing if you only wanted the space switch changed.

Switch spaces with the keyboard

Faster animations help, but the quickest switching is a keystroke that jumps straight to the desktop you want. See how to switch desktops with a keyboard shortcut on Mac to assign Control+number to each space.