Mission Control on MacOS27

On macOS 27 Golden Gate, I find that Mission Control and Spaces behave mostly as it did on prior versions of macOS, and as expected based on Apple's information:

View open windows and spaces in Mission Control on Mac – Apple Support

Work in multiple spaces on Mac – Apple Support

There is one difference I see between my two Macs with one on Golden Gate and the other on Tahoe with a window made full screen then a three-finder swipe. On Golden Gate, the Space that is selected is the 'last' one before the full screen window, and that's also the one that's shown occupying most of the screen (top panel, which is a 5K;2K display). On Tahoe, the full screen window is the one that is selected, and the 'first' Space is the one that is shown (bottom panel).

However, clicking on another Space goes to that Space, and there is no 'glitching' when switching Spaces or selecting other apps/windown in Mission Control that I see on Golden Gate.

Have you rebooted your Mac? If not, that's the first step. If that does not help, then see if the problem is present when you boot in safe mode. That process performs some system cleanup and clears caches, and also disables 3rd party extensions that may cause problems.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

If that does not correct the issue, test in a new user account. A newly-created user account will have all settings at default, and if the issue does not occur in that new account then it provides guidance on what may need to be changed to correct the issue.

Add a user or group on Mac - Apple Support

Once the testing is complete, the new account can easily be deleted.

Delete a user or group on Mac – Apple Support

Those steps will help to isolate the problem.

If the problem you are seeing remains, then bugs can be reported to Apple here:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

tstm wrote:

Now only F1 works. The other buttons do nothing. I've tried to reset the shortcuts to something else and back, rebooting, etc, nothing works. This is seriously annoying. =/

I found the issue! I'm using two displays.

The other display only has one workspace (and this was the same in previous MacOS). If I add more workspaces to the secondary display, the shortcuts start working again. And it still switches only the active display, as I want it to. So, some kind of bug, but at least there's a workaround.

My keyboard shortcuts to switch desktops were not working, and this fixed it (from an old post):

"Recreate the spaces: Open Mission Control (Control + Up Arrow), add a new desktop space using the +icon, and then delete it. This resets the internal cache for space switching."

I had similar issues with a 2026 M5 Pro MacBook Pro. Reinstalling macOS from Recovery without erasing the disk did not resolve them. Neither did creating a new user account. I then erased the disk, reinstalled macOS, and set up the Mac as new without restoring the old profile.

The screen flashing, dock glitches, failed Space selection, and lockups when accessing Mission Control are now gone. Horizontal Space transitions seem to take slightly longer to complete than they did in Tahoe, but I can get used to that.

this is less like Mission Control itself being redesigned and more like a bug in how macOS 27 is resolving Spaces after the upgrade. The interesting clue is that recreating Spaces temporarily fixes the problem, and in some cases the shortcuts break again after sleep; that points toward stale/corrupted Space state or the WindowServer/Mission Control state getting out of sync rather than a simple trackpad or keyboard setting.

I’d also check whether the problem appears immediately after a fresh login versus only after sleep/wake, because that helps distinguish persistent Space configuration from a WindowServer state bug. If you use multiple displays, make sure each display has more than one Space as well, since there are reports of Space shortcuts behaving incorrectly when a secondary display has only a single Space.

As a practical workaround, creating a temporary Desktop in Mission Control and deleting it forces macOS to rebuild the Space layout without wiping the system.

If that only fixes it until the next sleep or reboot, I’d treat that as strong evidence of a macOS 27 Mission Control/WindowServer bug rather than spending time reinstalling apps or changing unrelated settings.

I had few issues with the workspaces switching and the shortcuts to switch spaces,

I tried to delete all the existing spaces and create new ones. That seems to have solved the issue for me.

Maybe after the upgrade some configurations of the workspaces have gotten corrupted / outdated.

WaitingForSpaces wrote:

I had similar issues with a 2026 M5 Pro MacBook Pro. Reinstalling macOS from Recovery without erasing the disk did not resolve them. Neither did creating a new user account. I then erased the disk, reinstalled macOS, and set up the Mac as new without restoring the old profile.

The screen flashing, dock glitches, failed Space selection, and lockups when accessing Mission Control are now gone. Horizontal Space transitions seem to take slightly longer to complete than they did in Tahoe, but I can get used to that.

Did you try safe mode (which disables 3rd party extensions) before you started from scratch? Your solution would have eliminated 3rd party extensions (they'd have been restored if you erased then set up fam a backup).

Other users with Finder glitches like screen flashing and lockups stated those issues did not occur in safe mode, and ended up identifying TechTool Monitor as the culprit. There could certainly be other problematic extensions that aren't compatible with Golden Gate.

I wasn't asking if you knew about it. I asked if it worked to determine if there was a deeper issue.

Regardless, I can't replicate your problem. Mission Control works as it always has.

You could try starting up in Safe Mode, check operation there, then restart normally. Safe Mode will clear some system caches and disable any third-party system extensions.

… or mouse.

Are you using an external Mouse? Does it have software to provide special features? Safe Mode check should rule that out.

I came across many of the same problems with MI27. For last few days I spent hours fixing or rather trying to fix the problems with no fix. This morning I decided to start in safe mode, reinstall the OS, after some 60 minutes all came up running. Mission Impossible(27) problems gone. My remaining problem is with the apps that used to remember open window size and location when you safe and reopen it - is still busted. As long ago I had that problem with Numbers - eventually Apple fixed it. Hope new bugs will be fixed sooner then later.

I have a similar issue on MacOS 27, and MacOS 27.0.1. Here is the premise: I have three desktops and have assigned apps like Messages, Settings, Finder to show on All Desktops so I can quickly grab them from Mission Control regardless of the desktop I am in. The bug: lets say I am in Desktop 2, swipe up and click on Finder - it takes me randomly to either Desktop 1 or Desktop 3 where it brings Finder to the front - same for Messages, Settings. Curiously it does not do it for Gmail or Chrome.

What I found out however is that the bug fires only when "clicking" the the app window in Mission Control. If I hover over and swipe down instead of clicking everything works without an issue. So, looks like a bug, hopefully Apple will fix soon.

For all those saying that there are many permutations to installed apps that could be interfering with the os's behaivious etc. etc; I just wiped my drive and freshly reinstalled a clean os27 without restoring anything and mission control is still ducked up so no its not that. Its just poor quality control. Ended up taking the opportunity to just roll back to Sequoia.

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

Perhaps you would like to enlighten us all... I'm not at level 10, but I have been using Macs since 1985, and Mission Control since it was introduced about a decade and a half ago.

I may be obtuse, but I do not see what has changed in Mission Control from Tahoe to Golden Gate.

Well, I did point out the one change that I can replicate (in the 'top rated' reply in this thread), but it's functionally inconsequential.

Otherwise, Mission Control is fine on Golden Gate (and I've been using it just as long as you have – I multitask heavily, and have been doing so since Multifinder came out for my first Mac...and that was 39 years ago). I certainly cannot replicate the 'click the Desktop does nothing' and 'glitches out really badly' that the OP sees.

IMO, the real issue is that some people would rather blame Apple than actually troubleshoot their Mac, refusing to acknowledge that in many cases, the issue is being caused by a 3rd party tool/extension they chose to install, even one that is apparently unrelated.

Case in point, a user experiencing black preview screens in Mission Control traced the issue to LanguageTool, an AI-based grammar checker. What that has to do with Mission Control, I have no idea. But disabling it fixed the user's issue with Mission Control.

Thanks. That seems to have worked for me. Prior to this, I had deleted all of my desktops and re-added them. Just adding one then deleting it seems to be the charm.

Has anyone had any luck assigning an application to a Space? It works for a while, then forgets it.

Also confirming I have the same issue with MacOS 27 when trying to switch desktops with a keyboard shortcut.

Instead of creating a space and deleting a space to temporarily fix the issue, I run:

killall Dock

And again, it does not permanently solve the issue, but I find myself having to run this command several times a day to regain keyboard shortcuts. Oddly enough, the keyboard shortcut to switch to Desktop 1 always works. But attempting to switch to another desktop only works temporarily after running this command.

I have the same issue with the keyboards shortcuts not working, and I have tried almost anything. Fortunately there is a temporary fix, that works for me at least:

Creating a new desktop, and destroying it again.

Afterwards, the shortcuts work, until I wake my computer from sleep, and have to do the same steps again. Hope this can help someone.