MacOS – Full screen problem

displayfullscreenmacos

Whenever I use a full screen app, it first blacks out my other monitors and then whenever I click on another monitor it closes the full screen app and goes to windowed mode.

I would like it to just go fullscreen without my other monitors going black and I would like to be able to click on things on my other monitor without it closing the full screen.

I am running the latest version of El Capitan.

Thanks in advance 🙂

Best Answer

The only way to prevent this is to have "Displays have separate Spaces" checked in System Prefs > Mission Control

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This then requires that you have at least one more Space than you have monitors, or it has 'nowhere to go'

It has downsides…

  • that either Space can then be on either screen, so you lose the ability to spread your work over 2 monitors
  • that the Dock & menu bar can be on either screen

Personally, I don't think Apple quite thought through how Spaces & full-screen work if you have more than one monitor, the end result being that either setup is a compromise.

My own solution is to never use full-screen & also not use 'separate Spaces'

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