Well, good news. You can, in fact, assign an app to a specific desktop in Mission Control—perfect for keeping your programs in their proper “spaces,” particularly when you’re booting up your Mac.

Before we begin, something to keep in mind: this trick applies only to apps running in standard “windowed” mode. Programs running in “full screen” (a handy new feature in Mac OS X “Lion”) automatically get assigned to their own desktops.

Related: Getting the hang of desktop “spaces” in Mission Control

Just select “This Desktop” to pin an app to a specific Mission Control desktop.

So, ready to start “pinning” your apps to specific desktops? Here we go…

• First, navigate to the desktop where you’d like a particular program to call home. If, for example, you want iPhone to sit in Desktop 2, launch Mission Control, then click on Desktop 2 from the overhead Mission Control view (or create a second desktop if there isn’t one already).
• Launch the app you want to assign to the desktop—again, let’s use iPhoto as our example.
• Go down to the Mac desktop dock at the bottom of the screen, find the icon for iPhoto, and right-click it.
• In the menu that appears, select Options, then select “This Desktop” under the “Assign to” heading.

Now, let’s test. Go ahead and close the app you just assigned to a desktop, navigate to Desktop 1 in Mission Control, then launch the app again—and when you do, it should launch in the desktop you assigned it to.

Also, if the app you’ve pinned to a desktop opens automatically when you start up your Mac, the app will now launch in its assigned window.

Related: How to rearrange your Mission Control desktops

OK, but what if you want to “unpin” an app from a desktop? Just right-click its icon in the dock, select Options, then select “None” under “Assign to.”

Looking for more Mac tips? Click here!

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Cybersi writes: I noticed on the Apple site that in Mission Control, it shows desktops labeled as iTunes, Mail etc. That seems better than straining my eyes to see what’s in my desktops, but I can’t seem to make them show on my Mac. Any suggestions please?

Greetings, Cybersi! Yes, it’s true: a little label for each of your desktops in Mission Control would make life easier for those of us who have to squint to see those tiny desktop thumbnails, and the good news is that Mission Control will label at least some of your desktops.

The bad news? It requires a little effort on your part—and unfortunately, not all your Mac apps will be up to the task.

Related: Getting the hang of desktop “spaces” in Mission Control

The secret is the new full-screen viewing mode in Lion, the latest version of the Mac operating system. Once you enter the full screen mode for an app, that app will appear as its own desktop in Mission Control, and it’ll be clearly labeled.

Mission Control won't label your desktops unless you're viewing your apps in full-screen mode.

But here’s the thing: not all apps have been tweaked to take advantage of Lion’s full-screen mode.

If you see a little pair of arrows in the top-right corner of an app’s desktop window, that’s a telltale sign that it’s full-screen ready. You can also check if there’s a full-screen option in the View menu along the top of the screen. And if you still come up empty, well … you’re out of luck, at least as far as that particular app is concerned.

And here’s another thing: there will probably be plenty of cases where you don’t want to use the full-screen mode for your apps, anyway.

Personally, I like having two browsers and my instant messaging client running in my main desktop, and I keep them in “windowed” mode so I can jump quickly between all three windows. That’s all well and good, but it also means that in Mission Control, my main desktop is labelled (rather unhelpfully) as “Desktop 1.”

Hope that helps—and if you still have questions, just let me know!

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Yes, I was, and I even described an elaborate workaround for rearranging your desktops in the overhead Mission Control view, given the fact that you couldn’t simply click and drag them. (Click here for the skinny on Mission Control and its virtual desktops.)

Well, guess what: as of now, you can click and drag desktops in Mission Control, thanks to the just-released update to the Lion system software (version 10.7.2, to be precise).

I had a funny feeling that Apple would go ahead and add the ability to drag desktops in Mission Control—after all, you can drag and drop pretty much anything on the Mac desktop.

To install the latest version of Lion, click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen, select Software Update, and follow the instructions.

If you do decide to take control of the order of your Mission Control spaces, don’t forget to disable the “Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use” setting.

Just click the Apple menu (yep, the same one as before, in the top-left corner of your screen), select System Preferences, click the Mission Control icon, then uncheck the appropriate checkbox.

Looking for more Lion tips? Click here!

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Sound confusing? Sure. After all, most of us are used to having a single desktop on our systems—you know, the one that’s directly in front of us. The idea of have more, “virtual” desktop spaces with open windows that you can’t see can take a little getting used to.

Once you get the hang of it, though, these additional desktop spaces—which you manage in Mac OS X Lion with a new feature, dubbed “Mission Control”—can become addicting, even essential.

Indeed, when I switch to a PC running Windows, which doesn’t have built-in desktop “spaces” like the Mac does, the thought of having only one space for all my windows leaves me feeling cramped and claustrophobic.

Let’s take a quick tour of the desktop spaces in Lion’s new “Mission Control”—and keep in mind that older versions of the Mac operating system also have the “spaces” feature, which you can manage in the System Preferences panel under the Apple menu.

1. First, go ahead and activate Mission Control by clicking its icon in the Mac OS “Dock,” swiping up with three fingertips on your MacBook trackpad, pressing the Mission Control key (the one marked with three little boxes) on your Mac keyboard (it should be in the top row), or by following one of these methods.

2. Now you’ll see an overhead view of all your open applications, windows, and spaces. In the example I’m showing here, we’ve only got two spaces running: the Mac OS “Dashboard,” a window with “widgets” for things like the weather, stock tickers, and news headlines, and a single desktop space.

On my desktop, I have five applications open—Mail, iPhoto, iCal, iTunes, and Safari, not to mention a total of three Safari open windows at once. Yep, things are starting to get a little crowded.

3. OK, time to spread out a little bit. I’d like to deal with my Mail in a completely separate space on my desktop, so it can be open and ready for me without getting lost in a pile of windows. So here’s what we’ll do; I’ll activate Mission Control again, click and hold my Mail window, and then drag it up and over to the upper-right corner of the screen—where all of a sudden, a new “space” with a big “+” sign appears.

4. I drop Mail into my new space, and presto! I now have another desktop (helpfully labeled “Desktop 2”) with just my Mail application open. To visit my new space, I just activate Mission Control and click the Desktop 2 icon, which immediately zooms in and fills my screen. (You can also click the two arrows in the upper-right corner of the Mail window to enter a “Full Screen” mode—or not, it’s up to you.)

5. Now I’ll go ahead and rinse, repeat with more of my open applications, until I have a total of six desktop “spaces” (plus the Dashboard space) going at once. To switch between your desktops, open Mission Control and click the desktop space you want to jump to. You can also scroll though them one-by-one with a sideways three-finger swipe on your trackpad, or by tapping a left or right arrow key on the keyboard while holding down the Control key.

6. Want to start cleaning up your spaces? Activate Mission Control, then hold your mouse over the space you want to close until a circle with an “x” appears on its corner. Click the “x,” and poof—the space will disappear, with any open windows safely sliding over to one of your remaining spaces (so don’t worry, you won’t lose any work).

So, that’s the “what” and “how” of Mission Control’s desktop spaces—but what about the “why”?

As I mentioned earlier, the whole desktop “space” concept may take time to wrap your brain around—and indeed, it changes the way you work.

My wife, for example, used to love having all her open applications and documents on one desktop, or minimized in the Mac OS “Dock” where she could see them. For her, using virtual spaces was an unwelcome jolt to her daily desktop routine.

Personally, though, I love it—and my wife has come to depend on virtual desktop spaces, too. For me, it keeps my desktop activities organized and separated: all my mail is here, my photos are over here, my music’s there, and my calendar’s here. When it’s time to do the books in Quicken, I create a new space and start cranking away—and if work beckons, I can switch spaces, do what needs to be done, then return to my Quicken desktop “space,” with everything there just as I left it.

So, give it a try—and if you have more questions about desktop spaces, Mission Control, or Mac OS X Lion in general, just ask!

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