Group Mission Control windows by app on Mac

If your windows scatter to a different spot every time you open Mission Control, it's because the default layout places them freely, with no fixed home. Turn on Group windows by application in System Settings → Desktop & Dock and each app's windows cluster together in a predictable place. Here's the toggle, the Terminal one-liner, and what actually changes.

Why the tiles land in random spots

In the default free-floating layout, Mission Control lays every open window out as a loose tile and packs them to fit the screen. Open a browser window, close it, open two more, and the arrangement reshuffles — the same window can sit top-left one moment and bottom-right the next. There's nothing wrong with your Mac; the mode is designed to show as many windows as possible at readable sizes, not to keep any one window in a consistent position. That trade works until you have a dozen windows and your eyes have nowhere reliable to land.

Grouping fixes the root cause. Instead of ranking every window individually, Mission Control first sorts them by application, then draws each app's windows as one cluster. Safari sits with Safari, Mail sits with Mail. The layout still adapts to how many windows are open, but now it adapts by app, so the shape of your screen stays recognisable session to session.

Group them from System Settings

1. Open System Settings.
2. Click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar.
3. Scroll down to the Mission Control section.
4. Turn on Group windows by application.

The change takes effect immediately — open Mission Control (swipe up with three or four fingers, press the Mission Control key, or hit Ctrl+Up) and you'll see the clusters right away. This is the same setting on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia; only the sidebar name differs slightly across versions, but it always lives under Desktop & Dock.

The Terminal toggle

The switch is backed by a single preference in the Dock's domain. Setting it by hand is useful when you're scripting a fresh Mac or want the change in a dotfiles setup:

# Group each app's windows together in Mission Control
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-apps -bool true
killall Dock

The killall Dock restarts the Dock process so Mission Control picks up the new value; your open windows aren't touched. To go back to the free-floating layout, write the opposite value and restart the Dock again:

# Undo — back to free-floating tiles
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-apps -bool false
killall Dock

What changes once it's on

The biggest shift is muscle memory. With grouping on, your brain stops scanning pixel positions and starts scanning app icons — each cluster carries the app's name and icon, so you glance at a shape rather than reading tiny thumbnails. Windows of an app that has several open will overlap into a small pile you can still click into. And because the arrangement is derived from a stable rule instead of a fit-everything algorithm, the layout stops jumping around between visits.

It's a preference, not a lock-in. If you rely on remembering that a specific note always sits in the corner, free-floating may suit you better — flip the toggle off and you're exactly where you started. Nothing about your windows, spaces, or apps is altered; only how the overview draws them.

Make the overview open faster, too

Grouping tidies what Mission Control shows; you can also speed up how quickly it appears. See how to make Mission Control faster on Mac to trim the animation so the grouped overview snaps open instantly.