TipBITS: How to Ensure Mac Apps Open on the Correct Screen

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Originally published at: TipBITS: How to Ensure Mac Apps Open on the Correct Screen - TidBITS

I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve been using Mimestream since it was in beta and have a good relationship with the company, so I report minor bugs or complaints fairly regularly. After a recent update, when Mimestream relaunched, its window appeared on my primary screen instead of the secondary screen where it usually lives. I had noticed this before, but I was feeling persnickety, so I filed a feature request to have it remember the screen it was on.

When Ratnesh from Mimestream replied, he asked me to open System Settings > Desktop & Dock, scroll down to the Windows section, and check whether “Close windows when quitting an application” was enabled. It was, and Mimestream wasn’t to blame at all.

I turned that option off, quit and relaunched Mimestream, and its window appeared in its proper location on my secondary screen. This annoyance had affected other apps as well—Messages now opens its window properly on my MacBook Pro’s built-in screen rather than on the primary screen. I dislike the behavior triggered by this setting, but it’s the default, and I missed changing it when setting up my new 14-inch MacBook Pro from scratch to avoid bringing over years of cruft from my old 27-inch iMac.

Setting that controls window restoration

Although the setting label doesn’t make it clear that it affects window positioning at app launch, its description clarifies somewhat: “When enabled, open documents and windows will not be restored when you re-open an application.”

In retrospect, I thought this might be a Mimestream issue because apps used to have to store their window positioning entirely on their own. But some research reminded me that Apple didn’t add system‑level Resume until OS X 10.7 Lion, which largely automated window restoration for Cocoa apps. Today, most apps rely on macOS to restore window positions, making the “Close windows when quitting an application” setting more important.

It’s reasonable to wonder why Apple made closing windows the default in macOS when restoration is the norm in iOS. My best guess is that while users with firm mental models of an app’s previous state may now appreciate full restoration (controversial at the time, as Matt Neuburg wrote in “Lion Zombie Document Mystery Solved,” 23 May 2012), it can cause confusion by reopening outdated windows, particularly for document-centric apps. Closing windows also reduces edge cases across multiple displays, Spaces, and hardware changes—fresh windows tend to appear in predictable positions—and it nudges developers to present a sensible default window on the main screen rather than rely on restoration.

I wouldn’t have thought to look in Desktop & Dock, because the setting has little to do with either, and its placement there makes an already opaque behavior harder to discover. Matt’s article also reminded me that the wording used to be much more explicit—“Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps”—and that it previously lived in the General preferences pane. Apple changed the wording long ago in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and moved the setting to Desktop & Dock in the jarring jump from System Preferences to System Settings in macOS 13 Ventura. That earlier wording and location were more accurate and easier to discover. The current label describes a side effect while obscuring the actual behavior, making it easy to misdiagnose the problem as an app bug.

Ultimately, I’m glad to be reminded of this setting, since I like my apps to restore their state on launch. In part, that’s because I use almost no document-centric Mac apps anymore, so I don’t have to put up with old documents opening automatically. Those who rely heavily on local documents or like a clean slate on every app launch may prefer otherwise.

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At least it is better than Windows, where sometimes when you launch an app, its window will be off screen. This never happens with macOS; at worst the window will just be mostly off screen, but you still have at least a sliver of window border to drag it back.

In Windows there are intuitive methods to fix this, such as:

  1. Start the program
  2. Make sure the program is highlighted in the taskbar
  3. Alt-space. This opens the application’s System Menu – the menu you used to get when you clicked on an application’s icon in the upper left corner of the windows. Since the app is offscreen, this menu will appear floating in the primary display.
  4. One of the original purposes of the System Menu was to allow windows management without a mouse. Hence, an item in the menu is Move. Click this. A move cursor appears.
  5. Move is for moving without a mouse, right? Press an arrow key to move the hidden window so you can see it.
  6. Click or Enter to finalize the move.

So imagine my surprise recently when I tried this procedure. Alt-space brought up Copilot! Microsoft hijacked a basic Windows key combination, dating from at least Windows 2.0, 40 years ago!

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That solved a problem I too was mentally blaming on the vendor. I have four Spaces defined, three of which have Arc browser windows sized, positioned, and tab-group selected just the way I want. If I accidentally quit Arc, I’d have to manually re-recreate this setup. After turning off “Close windows when…”, quitting Arc re-opens all three windows just as I had them. Woo hoo! I do still have to drag them back to their assigned Space, but I don’t think that’s Arc’s fault either.

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I wonder how this setting interacts with the Shut Down/Restart dialog checkbox for reopening what was open before Shut Down/Restart. :thinking:

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I have been frustrated with Apple’s Image Capture always opening in a postage stamp sized window. Resizing it never stuck through a Quit and subsequent launch. Making the change suggested here fixes that issue.

Now I have to see how other apps might affected.

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It’s still misleading.

I expect this feature to decide whether or not to reopen document windows when launching an app.

An app that doesn’t manage documents, but operates entirely within a single window shouldn’t be affected by this. And those apps should remember window placement.

FWIW, on my Mac (macOS 15.7.3), I have this box checked, because I don’t want document windows restored. And single-window apps (including Messages, Music and just about everything else) remember their window positions. This is on a single screen, but dual-screen shouldn’t change this.

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[In the discussion below, I use ‘desktop’ rather than ‘screen’ to agree with Apple’s terminology. Don’t forget that one can define multiple desktops for one real screen.]

There’s another way to remember where windows opened: when the app is open, control-click its Dock icon, then select Options > Assign to. Initially, you will have the choice of all desktops, the desktop where its active window is already open, and none. If you choose a desktop and that desktop is known when the application is next opened, it will open on that desktop. If that desktop is unavailable, it will open on the primary desktop, and the selection will be changed to None. If the desktop becomes available, the application will still open on the active desktop, with both the previously selected desktop and None checked. If you tap the Desktop option, the app window will jump there, leaving both selections checked. As long as the alternate desktop is available, the app will open there.

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Quoting myself…

Having made the change to OFF Safari now opens in a blank page and does not load my home page. I have changed the setting back to ON. And other apps are probably going to behave in ways that surprise me.

Oh, well…

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I have this setting On for the same reason as @Shamino — I don’t want document windows auto-restored.

But that got me thinking… For ages I’ve had this issue where my Finder will not recall the position and size of its default column view window. After a reboot or if I just quit and restart Finder, it will always open its first window in some super small and useless size at the center of my screen. I then need to reconfigure that Finder window and close it in order for my preferred settings to stick. Until I next relaunch Finder. All the tips and tricks offered up (even here) didn’t fix the issue. This drove me crazy to the point where I even wrote a script to auto-reconfigure Finder’s default window on the fly.

Any ideas if toggling this setting to Off would affect my Finder’s forgetfulness? It’s my understanding that for @ace, it was the other way around — toggling it to Off made the app remember the proper window position. So maybe I’m just grasping for straws here. :face_with_monocle:

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For a moment I thought you may have stumbled upon the solution to the Finder’s forgetfulness.

  • I opened then closed a few Finder windows to see if it remembered. It did.
  • Quit Finder then tried opening and it had forgotten position and size.
  • I toggled the switch to OFF and then opened Finder. Positioned the window and size.
  • Closed it and reopened the window and position and size was correct.
  • Quit Finder then opened a window. It’s forgetfulness remains.

Would have been nice.

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It’s definitely part of the same Resume feature, but I’d have to do some testing to see how they interact.

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As a left-handed person I would appreciate it if the title was amended to read “correct screen” instead of “right screen”! :grin:
It might also save confusion about whether it refers to the rightmost display.
Cheers

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Ironically, the “right” screen for Mimestream is my left screen. Fixed… :-)

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Congrats! On the dragging back to their Spaces, though, maybe it is Arc’s fault? For a good long time this was true for Preview but not for other applications. I’m using Sequoia 15.4.1 and it’s much more often true that a re-starting application’s windows get opened in their previous Spaces.

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This got me thinking that maybe there’s a similar setting in MS Word’s preferences, since it never re-opens windows that were open at quit, but all my other applications do. Nope, I can’t find one, but I do find people asking about it.

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I have three displays. I’ve had “close windows when quitting an application” disabled but 1Password never remembers its proper location and always opens on my main screen. I always have to move it to my right-hand screen. Annoying!

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I guess this is a slightly separate question, but what about having the apps all open to the same display they closed on when you restart your Mac?

Also, the only app I have that never reopens previous windows after, say, upgrading is Excel. Anybody know a way of getting it to do that?

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My «close windows» was on. Side effect (I think): when I put the computer to sleep, all windows are moved to the centre screen (3x 27” screens). So when you wake it, all the windows are piled up in the center screen. Now that it’s OFF, sleep seems back to normal.

Now is there a way to get the «app menu bar» on the same screen as it’s window?

eg: Adobe Bridge opened on the right (not left) screen, it’s menu bar is on the center screen. I go to center screen menu»Tools»Batch rename… and the action window opens on the right screen above the app window. LOTS of scrolling!!

Is there a way to have the Menu Bar on the same screen as its open window?

macOS Sequoia 15.7.3

Regards, Pierre

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UPDATE: OFF position— when it wakes from sleep, ALL windows are still piled up on the center screen.

PG

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I haven’t had a problem, but I control where apps can open by first opening the app and placing its primary window on the appropriate screen or virtual desktop. I then control-click the Dock icon for the app and, under Options>‘Assign to’, select the appropriate desktop.

From then on, whenever I open the app, and the screen containing that desktop (i.e., space) is connected, the application will open there. If that screen is not connected, it will open on the screen where the menu bar appears.

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