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How to turn on Stage Manager on your Mac

How to turn on Stage Manager on your Mac

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If you’re overwhelmed by your tabs and apps, there’s another way.

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Image of a MacBook Pro on a stylized background.
Illustration: Samar Haddad / The Verge

If you constantly find yourself drowning in piles of tabs, apps, and windows while using your Mac computer, Stage Manager might be able to help. Also available on iPads, Stage Manager organizes your apps as thumbnails on the side of the screen and puts whatever you’re working on front and center. You can have a maximum of one window (or one group of windows) open at a time. The idea is that you can work without distractions while still having access to an easy at a glance view of your other software.

When you’ve got Stage Manager open, you can click one of the thumbnails on the side to open that app or group. (This will close the one you already have open.) If you frequently need to use multiple windows at once, you can group them together, then click on that group to open them all at once.

Here’s how to turn Stage Manager on. (Make sure your device is running macOS Ventura first.)

A screenshot of macOS Ventura running in Stage Manager. The Verge homepage is open in Safari, and Slack and Chrome are in piles on the left side.
Here’s what Stage Manager looks like — those are my Slack and Chrome windows piled on the left.

Turn Stage Manager on in settings

  • Open System Settings (the gray icon on the dock).
  • Go to Desktop & Dock.
  • Scroll down until you see Stage Manager. Toggle it on.

Turn Stage Manager on in Control Center

  • Click the Control Center icon on the right side of the menu bar. (It looks like two toggles.)
  • Click Stage Manager.
A screenshot of the System Settings menu in macOS Ventura showing Stage Manager toggled off.
Here’s what you’re looking for if you go through System Settings.
A screenshot of the Control Center in macOS Ventura with Stage Manager toggled off.
Here’s what you’re looking for if you go through Control Center.