Moving windows between spaces on MacOS

Since moving to MacOS as my default work os ~2 years ago, I've tried to find a consistent way to achieve all of my usual linux workflows with shortcuts. I got everything working right away except moving windows between spaces. Most articles online tell you to grab the title bar and switch spaces using the built in space navigation shortcuts. This works, but still requires using your mouse. If you're trying to develop "keyboard only" workflows, this guide should sort you out.

By the end of this guide, you will be able to send the currently focused window to another space with the shortcut cmd+shift+1-6

The steps are:

1. Install hammerspoon (version 1.0.0 or above)
2. copy the script from below into the correct location: ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua
3. run hammerspoon and double check everything is working
4. Disable conflicting MacOS shortcuts

Installing Hammerspoon

Hammerspoon is a macos scripting utility which provides a number of nice utilities for macos exposed via the lua scripting language. In hammerspoon's 1.0.0version, they added an api for moving windows between spaces. To install hamerspoon, you can either download it from the github, or install it using brew.

Required Script

Copy the following script into ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua Please refer to the hammerspoon docs for info on what is happening in this script.

-- Set up the logger
local log = hs.logger.new('WindowMover', 'info')

-- Function to get spaceId by space name
function getSpaceIdByName(spaceName)
    local spaceNames = hs.spaces.missionControlSpaceNames()
    for uuid, desktops in pairs(spaceNames) do
        log.i("UUID: " .. uuid) -- Log the UUID
        for index, name in pairs(desktops) do
            log.i("Index: " .. index .. ", Name: " .. tostring(name)) -- Log the index and name
            if name == spaceName then
                log.i("Found spaceId for " .. spaceName .. ": " .. index)
                return index
            end
        end
    end
    log.w("Space not found: " .. spaceName)
    return nil
end

-- Function to move focused window to a specific space
function moveFocusedWindowToSpace(spaceNumber)
    local spaceName = "Desktop " .. spaceNumber
    log.i("Attempting to move window to " .. spaceName)
    local spaceId = getSpaceIdByName(spaceName)
    if spaceId then
        local focusedWindow = hs.window.focusedWindow()
        if focusedWindow then
            log.i("Moving window " .. focusedWindow:title() .. " to spaceId " .. spaceId)
            hs.spaces.moveWindowToSpace(focusedWindow:id(), spaceId)
        else
            log.w("No focused window")
            hs.alert.show("No focused window")
        end
    else
        log.w("Space not found: " .. spaceName)
        hs.alert.show("Space not found: " .. spaceName)
    end
end

-- Bind keys cmd + shift + 1-6
for i = 1, 6 do
    hs.hotkey.bind({"cmd", "shift"}, tostring(i), function()
        log.i("Hotkey pressed: cmd + shift + " .. i)
        moveFocusedWindowToSpace(i)
    end)
end

Things to note

1. For this to work, you should ensure that you have the displays have separate spaces option disabled.
2. You also need to have all of the desktops in the control center dropdown be named "Desktop 1-N".
3. You can open hammerspoon to see the console and see debug messages when the shortcuts are working.
4. The hotkeys will conflict with MacOs's default keyboard shortcuts for taking screenshots. You can either disable these, or change the script.

Questions?

post questions in the X thread below: questions