I’m a Windows guy. This little-known feature makes Macs more tolerable

Although I own a Mac Mini and dabble in using macOS, my allegiance has always been to Windows.

I juggle a lot of tasks in my everyday PC use — from writing and researching to communicating via Slack and email — and Windows has always just felt faster. That’s largely because of the Windows taskbar and how it helps with managing my, er, windows. I’ve never found a workflow on macOS that felt as efficient.

But that changed when I finally started using Stage Manager, the window management feature that Apple first introduced in 2022. While it’s sometimes maligned as unpolished — and could certainly use some improvements — it’s the one feature that finally made macOS click for me.

This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up to get tech advice like this every Tuesday.

Stage Manager in macOS, explained

Stage Manager is an optional feature for Mac users. To enable it, you must click the Control Center icon in the menu bar, then click Stage Manager. (You can also turn it on under System Settings > Desktop & Dock.)

Once it’s enabled, your open windows will shrink down into small “thumbnail” views on the left side of the screen, and you’ll be able to manage them according to a set of rules:

• Clicking a thumbnail in Stage Manager brings that window into full view and minimizes other windows to Stage Manager’s sidebar.
• Clicking the desktop minimizes all windows to the sidebar, including the current one. Clicking again brings the current window back.
• To bring multiple windows to the desktop, drag them out from Stage Manager onto the same space as your current window. These window groups will all minimize together when you switch to another window, and you can bring them back with one click.

Also worth knowing:

• Minimizing a window (with the yellow button) sends it back to Stage Manager’s sidebar.
• Closing a window (with the red button) removes it from the sidebar.
• Switching a window to full-screen (with the green button) hides Stage Manager entirely.

All of this results in a less-cluttered desktop. Instead of having a half-dozen windows piled on top of each other, Stage Manager forces you to focus on a single window at a time while making it easier to swap between windows when you need to.

Why Stage Manager works for me

In Windows, I rely on a taskbar feature called “Never Combine” to help with multitasking. With Never Combine enabled, all of the windows you have open get an expanded view in the taskbar with descriptive labels instead of just icons.

“Never Combine” is great for when you have multiple open windows from a single program — for instance, two separate browser windows — but it’s mainly just a useful visual aid. Just by glancing at the taskbar, I can quickly see which apps are open, plus the expanded label view gives me a bigger target to click on. (I’m not sure how many other folks depend on “Never Combine,” but when Microsoft removed it in Windows 11, it led to enough outcry that the company eventually brought it back.)

In macOS, Stage Manager scratches the same itch, providing a clear visual guide to which apps are open and an easy way to switch between them. (And yes, I know about Mission Control, but invoking it requires an extra step so I seldom bother to use it.)

Stage Manager has also changed my relationship with the Dock on macOS. Instead of using it for window management like I would with the Windows taskbar, I now treat the Dock as a stripped-down launcher for my favorite apps. I keep it hidden by default and have disabled the setting that shows recent and suggested apps. (Both options can be found under System Settings > Desktop & Dock.)

There’s still room for improvement

While Stage Manager has been a revelation for me, Apple could do a couple of things to make it even more useful.

My biggest gripe is that you can’t close windows from Stage Manager without first maximizing them. Just as Windows shows a pop-up thumbnail with an “X” icon when you hover over an app in the taskbar, Stage Manager should offer a shortcut for quickly closing windows.

Grouping windows together could be easier as well. Seeing as you can already drag a window out from Stage Manager to group it with the currently open window, you should be able to drag an open window back to the sidebar to group it with other apps there. (Being able to name your window groups would be nice, too.)

Also, a disclaimer: As an ultrawide monitor user, I’m not starved for space along the side edges of my screen. Stage Manager’s sidebar could feel more cramped on a regular widescreen monitor or a MacBook. (You can save space by heading System Settings > Desktop & Dock and disabling “Show recent apps in Stage Manager,” which hides your thumbnails until you scroll to the left side of the screen, though you lose the benefit of having a persistent view of your open apps.)

But even in its current form, Stage Manager feels like the missing piece for me as a Windows-first computer user. I look forward to distributing my time more evenly across the two OSes in the future.

This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up to get tech advice like this every Tuesday.