Save your desktop

Instead of building a layout from zones, you can arrange your windows by hand and save the result. Layout records the app and frame of each visible window, and launching the workspace puts them back the same way later.

Save the current desktop

1. Arrange your windows the way you want them.
2. Press ⌃⌥S. You can also choose Save Desktop as Workspace… from the Layout icon in the menu bar, even while Layout is paused, or Save desktop as workspace… from the command palette.
3. Type a name for the new workspace (“My desktop” by default), and click Save.

Layout saves the apps and positions of your visible windows without moving any of them. It keeps several windows of the same app, and windows that overlap. Then it adds the new workspace at the end of your workspaces, selects it in the editor, and shows “Saved” followed by its name.

The keyboard shortcut works only while Layout is active. Saving needs the Accessibility permission. Windows on every connected display are included, with their positions relative to that display. If a saved display is disconnected, its windows temporarily use the primary display and its preferred layout remains saved.

What isn’t saved

• Minimized windows.
• Windows of hidden apps.
• Windows in macOS full screen.
• Windows that Layout has moved out of sight because they belong to another workspace.
• Windows of wildcard apps, which come to you anyway.

If no window qualifies, Layout shows “No visible, movable windows to save.”

Restore it

Select the saved workspace in the editor and click Launch, or press its shortcut with ⇧. Each window goes back to the exact frame you saved; no spacing is added.

If you saved several windows of one app, Layout needs that many windows. Whether an app opens an extra window when asked depends on the app. When it doesn’t, Layout reports which app didn’t create an available window.

Edit a saved desktop

A saved desktop keeps a fixed frame for each window instead of zones. In the editor:

• The template menu below the preview shows Saved desktop.
• Each saved window appears as a zone named after its app. In Apps, the menu next to an app’s name offers Replace…, which replaces the app of that zone, and Remove from Workspace, which empties it. Click an empty zone in the preview to choose its app again.
• You can’t split, remove, rename, or resize these zones, and there are no New windows, margin, or floating apps settings.

To turn a saved desktop into a regular layout, choose a template under Start from. Its apps are spread over the template’s zones, and the saved frames are dropped.