Make Mission Control group windows by application

When you open Mission Control to grab one specific window and find fifteen near-identical thumbnails staring back, the overview is working against you. Turn on Group windows by application and Mission Control sorts every window under its app, so you find the one you want by locating its app first — a fast visual jump instead of a slow read across the whole screen.

Why finding a window gets hard

The default overview treats each window as an equal, independent tile. That's fine with four or five windows, but the pain grows fast: with three browser windows, two documents, a couple of chat threads and a terminal, the thumbnails shrink and start to look alike. To find "the second Safari window with the invoice open," you have to read every browser thumbnail in turn, because Safari's windows could be anywhere on screen — scattered among Mail, Notes and everything else.

Grouping changes the search from reading to pointing. All of Safari's windows sit together under the Safari icon, all of Mail's under Mail. You jump your eyes to the app you know the window belongs to, then choose from that app's small pile. It turns a linear scan of everything into a two-step lookup: app, then window.

Turn on grouping

1. Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
2. Scroll to the Mission Control heading.
3. Switch on Group windows by application.

That's the whole change, and it applies live — the next time you invoke Mission Control the windows are clustered by app. It behaves identically on macOS 13 Ventura through 15 Sequoia. Prefer the command line? The same toggle is one Dock preference:

# Cluster windows under their app in Mission Control
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-apps -bool true
killall Dock

# Undo — spread every window as a separate tile again
defaults write com.apple.dock expose-group-apps -bool false
killall Dock

Find the window even faster

Grouping pairs well with two habits that make the hunt near-instant:

• Hover, don't click. Move the pointer over a cluster and the app's windows separate enough to read; you commit only when you've spotted the right one.
• Drop to a single app. If you already know it's a Safari window, skip Mission Control and use App Exposé — swipe down with three or four fingers over Safari, or press Ctrl+Down — to see only that app's windows, now the only things on screen.

Between grouping and App Exposé you rarely need to read more than a handful of thumbnails at once, which is the whole point: the fewer windows your eye has to weigh, the faster the right one jumps out.

When one app has too many windows

Grouping helps you find the app; a keyboard shortcut helps you cycle its windows. See how to switch between windows of the same app on Mac to step through Safari's or Preview's windows without leaving the keyboard.