MacOS – How to have more than 16 keyboard shortcuts for Spaces (i.e., Mission Control)

keyboardmacosmission-controlshortcutspaces

Okay, so I have:

  1. One external display connected to my Mac
  2. Twenty Spaces (i.e., Mission Control), with ten Spaces on each display
  3. My keyboard shortcuts are [Ctrl + X] for the left-hand display, and [Ctrl + Alt + X] for the right-hand.
  4. My Mission Control settings are Displays have separate Spaces = ON

Fine and good. However, the keyboard shortcuts only go up to "Switch to Desktop 16." (i.e., System Preferences >> Keyboard >> Shortcuts >> Mission Control)

I have twenty desktops, but the keyboard shortcuts only go up to sixteen. How can I fix this?

Best Answer

Here's something I tried (on 10.9.5). Unfortunately, it didn't work, but I'll note it here in case it inspires someone.

  • I noticed that enabling System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Switch to Desktop 16 caused ~/Library/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist to update.
  • I found some information (1) (2) about that plist.
  • According to that second link, "Switch to Desktop 1" is action 118.
  • I tested enabling / disabling Switch to Desktop 16 in that System Preference pane whilst looking at the plist file, using /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :AppleSymbolicHotKeys" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist and, as I expected, the "enabled" value for action 133 (=118+15) changed.
  • I added a value for action 134 based on action 133, which I hoped would cause ctrl-alt-6 to switch to Desktop 17: defaults write com.apple.symbolichotkeys AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 134 "{enabled = true; value = { parameters = (65535, 22, 786432); type = 'standard'; }; }" Unfortunately this doesn't seem to have any effect on my system.
  • So: I think that the symbolichotkeys plist file contains a mapping from key presses to actions. The actions include Switch to Desktop 1 through to Switch to Desktop 16, but there are no corresponding actions for desktops with higher numbers. Sorry!
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