How can I disable auto-switching desktops?

There's a easier solution (if I'm reading the OP's post correctly).

Go to System Preferences/Mission Control and uncheck the box that says "When swithching applications, switch to another space with open windows for that application."

J.

P.S. I'm running 10.8.4

Thank you for this. But now the problem is that when you click on an icon in the Dock it won't take you to that app and when you have a lot of things open across different desktops it sometimes is hard to find the app you're looking for.

My problem with auto-switch was that when I had multiple windows of e.g. Adobe Pro (I'm a proofreader and do a lot of markup in pdfs, and will usually have 3 windows of the same document open so I can easily swipe back and forth between pdf:1, pdf:2 and so on, and then a couple other supporting documents open in Adobe in other desktops). Sometimes as I try to swipe e.g. from Desktop5 to Desktop1, even though I'm doing anything else, just swiping across screen, I keep being thrown back to one of those Desktops. So I get to D1 and before I can scroll down a page in D1, I'm suddenly at D5 -- which is not even necessarily another window of the same document!

Using those commands was helpful with that. But then when I have a dictionary open somewhere underneath one of 3 Browser windows, underneath sticky notes, say, in D6, I want to be able to just click on the Dictionary icon in the Dock and be taken there.

Is there a way to have both? That is, prevent iOS from automatically swiping me (god knows why!) to another Desktop (it feels like you're struggling against current, you swipe one way the computer is swiping the other! -- very frustrating) BUT allow to be taken to the corresponding desktop when you click on an icon in the Dock?

As is, I can't decide what is more annoying: looking for the app I "lost" somewhere in one of the Desktops (it's especially annoying when what you're looking for is a dialog window!) or getting swiped automatically because iOS seems to know better than I do which portion of the document I want to look at!

IF anyone needs to reverse the command, I simply replaced NO with YES, and followed with the "killall Dock" command.

I hope someone can find a solution to this! A more complex command?

One thing I do is just set one Desktop as my 'Research' Desktop, so I have Desktop 1 as my 'Aperture' Desktop, Desktop 2 is for chatting with friends, and Desktop 3 is for Researching, ie opening finder windows etc, so I set what apps I frequently use to open on this particular Desktop like this..

Other than that, no idea. Good luck on finding a more relevant answer.

I used this, but then I realized if I click on an application in the dock, the desktop will no longer auto-switch. I wish there was an in-between solution, where it wouldn't involuntarily autoswitch, but would when I want it to. To undo the change, I used the same script with a YES instead of NO:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool YES

then restarting the Dock using the following command:

killall Dock

also using 10.8.3

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.

Isolating an issue by using another user account

If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode. Shut down the computer and then power it back up. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once.

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There is a very simple answer

System preferences > Mission Control > uncheck box "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use"

Oh man. A thousand thanks! I am elated to find a solution. The switching is so annoying. Defeats the purpose of space entirely in my opinion but Apple acts like it is a helpful feature and the ostensible setting for it does nothing to stop the switching or if it actually works like it is supposed toopens a new iteration of a program off screen in another space. In other words both useless options.

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is marked solved and is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.

For me clicking a dock button twice switches desktops. I have a different problem with this option with Mission Control App Window display: clicking a window there no longer switches desktops, but I can live with this because application switching is so bad with this option. The actual problem here for me is that application switch focuses a seemingly arbitrary window. If application switch always focused the most recently focused window I would have no problem with auto workspace switching.

I'm using 10.12.4

This solved it for me, too! Thanks!

Also not reading the OPs correctly, jman995. Even if it works, on or off it is not a solution to the described problem.

Same here ! Thanx for the script !! 😎