Docs / Naming desktops
Naming desktops
A desktop with a name can be reached by saying it, typing it or pressing its number. This page covers where you name a desktop, the rules a name has to follow, aliases, icons and colours, dimming, and what happens to a name over a reboot.
Why a name
Without names, moving between desktops means counting. You remember that the mail window is two to the left, or you open Mission Control to look. A name replaces the counting. Once a desktop is called Writing, you say "Writing", or type the first few letters on the Board, or press its number, and you are there.
A name is also what everything else in DeskSay hangs off. The menu bar shows it, the Board tiles carry it, Mission Control thumbnails are labelled with it, and a per-desktop shortcut, note or automation belongs to a desktop you have named.
Where you name a desktop
There are several places, and they all write the same name.
You should seeThe new name on the tile, in the menu bar if that desktop is current, and over the desktop's thumbnail in Mission Control.
The rules
DeskSay checks a name as you enter it and refuses one that breaks a rule, with the reason.
The reserved words are the ones voice already uses as instructions. "Next" means go one to the right, "desktop 3" means the third desktop, and "back" means return to where you were. A desktop called Next would make those instructions ambiguous, so the name is refused instead. Bare digits and bare ordinals are out for the same reason: "3" and "third" are already how you address a desktop by position.
Aliases
An alias is another thing you might say for the same desktop. The desktop is called Design, but when you are moving quickly you say "Figma", or "mocks", or "art". Give it those as aliases and all four reach it. Up to 10 per desktop.
An alias follows the same rules as a name: 1 to 40 characters, compared case-insensitively, and no reserved words. Set aliases alongside the name, in the Name, Icon and Colour panel from a right-click on a tile or from the desktop's submenu in the menu, or in Settings, Desktops. More on what DeskSay understands when you speak is on the voice page.
Icons and colours
Each desktop can carry an icon and a colour. Icons are SF Symbols, the system symbol set, and the picker is searchable by word: type "mail" or "code" or "moon" and pick from what comes back. The colour is chosen per desktop.
You do not have to set either. A desktop with no icon or colour of its own is given one derived from its name, so the tiles are told apart by colour from the first moment. The derived icon and colour are drawn the same way everywhere DeskSay shows the desktop: on the Board, in Settings, and in the menu. Set your own and it replaces the derived one in all three.
Colours carry into the menu bar and Mission Control labels only when you ask for it: "Use desktop colours" for the menu bar indicators, and a setting for the label background on Mission Control thumbnails. See the menu bar page.
Dim
Dim hides a desktop from the menu bar indicators. The name stays, the desktop stays, and you can still switch to it by voice, by key or from the Board. It just stops taking up room in the row of indicators along the top of the screen. It is for the desktops you keep but rarely look at.
Dim a desktop with Command and D on the Board, or from the right-click menu on a tile, or from the desktop's submenu in the menu bar dropdown. The indicators hide dimmed desktops only when "Hide dimmed desktops from the indicators" is on, which is covered on the menu bar page.
How names survive
A name is keyed to the desktop's own identifier, not to its position, so it stays with that desktop while you add, remove and reorder others. Names survive a reboot.
macOS sometimes regenerates those identifiers. When that happens the old keys no longer match anything and DeskSay re-attaches the names by position instead, first desktop to first name and so on. If your order has not changed, you should not notice.
A named desktop that no longer exists becomes an orphan. You closed the desktop, or macOS did, and the name has nothing left to sit on. Orphans are listed in Settings, Desktops, and there are two things you can do with each one:
- Assign the name to another desktop. Use this when the desktop came back under a new identifier, or when the work moved to a different desktop and you want the name to follow it.
- Delete it. The name goes, along with what was attached to it.
If it does not workIf a name has landed on the wrong desktop after a restart, do not rename both in turn. Open Settings, Desktops and look for an orphan first: assigning the orphan's name is usually the one step that puts things back.
Numbering
When DeskSay says "Desktop 3", it means the third tile in your order on the Board. That order is yours: drag tiles on the Board to change it, and the numbers you press and the numbers you say follow it.
Mission Control keeps macOS's own numbering, which is a separate thing and does not have to agree. If you want the two to line up, the Board's reorder setting can carry your order into Mission Control itself. That is on the Board page.