Menu bar utility · macOS 13 and later
macOS gives you sixteen desktops and sixteen numbers. Your brain doesn't file work under numbers. It files it under places. The one where you code. The one where Slack lives.
Desknames lets you name them: Code, Comms, Deep Work. The name stays in your menu bar, so you always know where you are. Every desktop is one keystroke away.
Stop shuffling windows. Start going somewhere.
Go on, try it. Type a couple of letters, hit Return, and watch the menu bar up top follow along. Those six are my desktops, two of them never named. Rename fixes that.
Why it exists
Six desktops. I would swipe to my editor, land in Slack instead, and lose the thread, someone waiting on a call. The problem was never the switching: a desktop had no name, so there was nothing to aim at. So I named mine, put the current one in the menu bar, and built a search box for the rest. It has been open every day since. I have not landed in Slack by accident once.
What it does
No permissions to name or switch, nothing to configure, as many desktops as you make. Every shortcut is yours to change.
Xcode and Terminal open? It offers “Code”. Slack and Mail, “Comms”. Most of mine were named by pressing Return.
Type fig and you get the one with Figma on it, name or no name.
Pricing
I did not want another subscription either, so this is not one. Naming two desktops is free, forever; if that is all you need, you are done. Nineteen dollars buys naming as many as you make, on every Mac you own.
One person makes this. macOS has no public API for any of it, so an update could move something; the test suite runs on every macOS beta, and if a break ever reaches you the fix ships the week the OS does.
If something goes wrong, write to support@desknames.app. It reaches me, not a queue.
Thanks for reading this far.
— Alan Saillet