InstantSpaceSwitcher

Native instant workspace switching on macOS. No more waiting for animations.

Instantspaceswitcher.mp4

Features

• Does not require disabling SIP
• Uses native macOS spaces
• Free

A simple CLI is provided (InstantSpaceSwitcher.app/Contents/MacOS/ISSCli --help)

Installation

Homebrew

brew install --cask jurplel/tap/instant-space-switcher

Downloads

Pre-built binaries are available through Github Releases here.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/jurplel/InstantSpaceSwitcher
cd InstantSpaceSwitcher
./dist/build.sh
open ./build/InstantSpaceSwitcher.app

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues opening the app, such as:

"Apple could not verify InstantSpaceSwitcher.app is free of malware"

"App is damaged and can’t be opened"

"App can't be opened because the developer cannot be verified"

Please follow the instructions here for instructions on how to allow the app to run¹.

Background

When I first bought a high refresh rate monitor, around ~2018, I could tell that the space switching animation was longer because it had scaled with the refresh rate. Because of this, I eventually stopped using spaces altogether, and have been looking for a solution ever since.

The workaround in this project is to create a synthetic trackpad gesture with an artificially high velocity. This effectively skips the animation.

If you work at Apple, and your team owns the space switching animation, please fix this long-standing bug² (and let us disable the animation natively, please).

Footnotes

1. This happens because the app is not signed, which requires a costly Apple Developer account ↩

2. And I know for a fact there is a rdar for this ↩