Stage Manager is a great way to work with open apps on MacOS. Basically, thumbnails of open apps are created on the left edge of the display. These thumbnails allow you to easily navigate back to the app you want to use.
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The only problem with this option is that the thumbnails take up valuable screen real estate. This might not be an issue on larger monitors, but if you’re using a MacBook display, every inch of your screen is valuable. This is especially true when working with apps that are maximized to take up the entire screen. For me it usually depends on the app I’m using. For example, if I’m working on a document in LibreOffice or Pages, I prefer the app to take up the entire screen. In my email client, it doesn’t matter that much.
However, if you have Stage Manager enabled (using the default settings), having these windows fill your screen can be a pain. Also, ever since I started using the Rectangle window snap tool, I prefer to do all my window resizing efficiently. When Stage Manager displays recent apps, Rectangle will no longer be able to snap windows to full-screen mode.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to avoid this problem. You can easily maximize all your app windows to take advantage of all your screen space by following these steps: The only caveat is that thumbnails of open apps are automatically hidden. This means you have to hover your cursor on the left edge of the screen to bring up the thumbnail (so you can select a new app). If you can tolerate the extra steps, keep reading.
Disable recent apps in Stage Manager
Things necessary: All you need is a MacOS device running MacOS Ventura or later. Make sure your OS is as up-to-date as possible. We will demonstrate this on a MacBook Pro (M1) running MacOS Sonoma. As long as your version of MacOS supports Stage Manager, you should be fine.
The first thing to do is open the System Settings app. To do this, click the Apple icon in the menu bar, from the Dock (if it’s pinned there), or from the Launchpad. I usually go the Apple icon route. Because that’s what my brain is used to.
The necessary settings can be found in the Desktop and Dock section of System Preferences. Find that section in the left navigation and click on it.
Scroll down until you see the “Desktop and Stage Manager” section and you will find the following entry: View recent apps in Stage Manager. By default this is enabled. To disable it, click the on/off slider until it is in the off position. Once that’s done, you can close the System Settings app.
Thumbnails of recent apps will no longer be visible and you will have full screen access. Maximize the window to see the entire display. If you want to access one of your open windows, hovering over the left edge of the screen will show you recent apps and let you select the one you want.
That’s all the steps to hide recent apps in Stage Manager. If you’re like me, you want as much screen space as possible for the apps you use. This is a great way to get the best of both worlds.