The macOS Ventura Feature that Changed the Way I Work

I’ve been an active Apple fan since I first used a Mac desktop computer that my Mom brought home when I was in the fourth grade. I spent hours upon hours playing Garage Band and falling in love with the simple and intuitive UI.

I got the first may of my own when I was in high school: a 2010 MacBook Air. Almost immediately I discovered Apple’s public beta testing program, and since then I’ve participated in every macOS beta since OS X Mavericks.

2013’s OS X Mavericks — Wikipedia

Nearly every beta I’ve tested since then has had something — one feature or another — that I’ve gotten myself excited about. However, in the last 3 months, as I’ve tested the macOS Ventura beta, I’ve fallen in love with one new feature in particular and it’s changed the way I’ve worked unlike any other OS update has previously.

🎭 Stage Manager

For those who don’t know, Stage Manager is a new window management feature for Macs on macOS Ventura, as well as specific iPads (generally just those with M1 or M2 chips) on iPadOS 16. The new feature works slightly differently on macOS and iPadOS, but today I’m going to be focusing on the macOS version.

Stage Manager creates stacks of open apps to the left side of the desktop with the selected app (or apps) in the center of your screen. Think of your screen as a stage; unselected apps are off-stage in the wings, and your selected app is centerstage.

My work desktop holds Asana and Teams.

You can have up to 5 different stacks of apps open at a time on one desktop — one in the center view, and 4 off to the side. There doesn’t appear to be any limit on the number of apps you can have open in one stack.

On my external display, I’ve found that I can fit a little more: 6 stacks of apps — one in the center view, 5 off to the side. Beyond that, apps start disappearing off-screen. You can find them again if you open Mission Control.

✔️ How I use Stage Manager

I utilize switching between desktops on macOS all the time and have developed a system of what apps live on my 3 standard desktops.

• Desktop 1 — productivity apps: Calendar, Todoist, Notion, Mail.
• Desktop 2 — work apps: Asana, Teams.
• Desktop 3 — personal apps: Safari, Messages.

Stage manager on macOS Ventura

This system has worked well for me for a while, but my complaint was always (especially on Desktop 1) that sometimes apps could get easily buried. Stage manager solves that problem. It helps me see all of my open apps and switch between them quickly.

It’s hard to quantify the effect this has had on my workflow, so let me put it this way: I actively use two MacBooks. One is my 2020 M1 MacBook Air which I love deeply and is my personal computer that I installed the Ventura beta on. One is my 2017 Intel MacBook Pro: my work-issued computer that I decided not to download beta software on. I don’t have too much of a preference between these two devices. I’ve always been really impressed with Apple silicon, but — hot take — I actually kind of dig the Touch Bar (it’s a novelty, sure, but I think it’s pretty fun).

Generally my preference is to bring my work computer into the office and leave my personal computer at home, but I soon found that my work tasks got done so much quicker and easier on my personal computer with Stage Manager. I’m not proud of it, but my work computer has been sitting at home in a cabinet for a couple months.

⚙️ Stage Manager settings

There are a few settings that you can tweak in System Settings to tailor Stage Manager to your liking.

1. Toggle on/off showing recent applications to the side of your open window. This is the main benefit of the feature in my opinion, so I keep it on.
2. Toggle on/off showing your items on your desktop behind your open applications. I consistently interact with files on my desktop while I have applications open, so I like to keep this toggled on.
3. Decide whether to show multiple windows of the same application all at once, or one at a time. All at once will stack the different windows together off to the side, and open them together, whereas one at a time will only open one while keeping the other off to the side. Play around with these two to figure out which you prefer, but personally, I lean towards one at a time.

Settings for Stage Manager on macOS Ventura.

Have you tried out Stage Manager yet? Let me know what you think of it by leaving a response!

Apple’s new Stage Manager feature is available now to select Macs and iPads on macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16.

Thanks for reading!

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I plan to post bi-weekly articles about productivity, organization, and the apps I use to help with that.