Mac OS X: Disable Mission Control and Spaces

If you never use Mission Control than it is possible to disable the feature entirely and save resources. If you disable Mission Control you also disable the Spaces feature, before disabling Mission Control, close all of your spaces.

defaults write com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled -bool TRUE

Restart Dock the make changes affect:

killall Dock

To restore Mission Control:

defaults delete com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled

Again restart the Dock to make changes affect.

12 thoughts on “Mac OS X: Disable Mission Control and Spaces

    • That’s the windows way, and look where it got them. Millions of grannies everywhere breaking stuff they don’t understand.

  1. What fool publishes a terminal command on their site without giving the option to copy it? Must be someone with a single digit IQ

    • You’re a goddamn idiot. If you’re not even able to select & copy you have no business opening the terminal.

    • What kind of ungrateful, selfish person rips into someone who is only trying to help others?

    • Two points:

      1: It’s nothing more than an inconvenience to highlight the text, then copy-paste using keyboard shortcuts (I’m not going to tell you how to do them, you should know them already if you want to start messing with the Terminal)

      2: It’s also nothing more than an inconvenience to manually type the command into the Terminal yourself using that nifty little thing attached to your machine that I call a keyboard.

      Finally, this is a post that offers helpful tips to people who might be able to make use of them. Insulting said helpful poster shows a sense of entitlement that reeks of spoiled brat… Something I will always detest.

  2. I’m looking for a way to disable Mission Control for all users. Mission Control is a security leak for students who will be using Macs to take the Common Core tests.

  3. Tomag here is how to disable it in your OD server:

    To disable Exposé and Spaces for network-managed clients, use the following steps:
    1.Open Workgroup Manager and select a user, group, or computer group.
    2.Click Preferences, then click the Details tab.
    3.If you haven’t already imported ManagedClient.app, click the Add button and add the following application:
    /System/Library/CoreServices/ManagedClient.appThis will import a number of system-related preference manifests.

    4.Edit the Dock (com.apple.dock) entry that was added to the list.
    5.Click the disclosure triangle next to the desired preference domain (Once, Often, or Always) to reveal its contents
    6.Click the New Key button.
    7.Select the “New Item” entry that was added to the list.
    8.Choose Edit from the pop-up menu.
    9.Once in edit mode, enter the following information:
    mcx-expose-disabled boolean true

    10.Click Apply Now to save the change.
    11.Click Done to dismiss the preference editor.

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