I'm using macOS for more than 14 years now, in a single laptop screen setup with lots of windows open, and I'm using macOS spaces everyday to organize my windows. Switching between spaces is easy: I hit CTRL+arrow left/right, it takes no time. What takes time however, is this macOS-native transition animation that takes a bit less than 1 second, for every single space switch.
I've checked everywhere in macOS settings, asked friends with the same problem, and there's just no setting to disable this effect (even with Reduced Motion ON in Accessibility settings).
This UX choice from Apple alone costs me days of my time every year, as I'm working non-stop on my SaaS business for 10h a day 5-6 days a week (Crisp for those who know about it!).
I calculated that with my daily use of macOS spaces, in 6 months I'd perform 100,000 switches, which costs me the same in seconds waiting for the transition to complete. This represents almost 28 hours waiting. In 1 year, I'd have lost 2.4 days just... waiting!
The Hack
Fortunately, some other open-source projects discovered a hack not so long ago, which allows disabling the transition when switching spaces: it involves sending to the system a "fake" trackpad left/right swipe gesture that's faster than what's expected (faster than what a human can input via the Macbook's trackpad). Above some threshold, macOS just perform the space switch with absolutely no transition.
A friend of mine, @yaeeelglx, made a quick prototype in Objective-C, and it magically worked!
The Solution
So, I asked my friend if we could make it a proper macOS app together, in a beautiful minimalist package, and he said yes!
So, we launched Space Rabbit, a tiny 2MB fully native macOS app, that allows you to optimize macOS spaces for productivity! Space Rabbit is a full rewrite of the initial prototype in modern Swift, with a tray menu bar to configure the app, and a settings window, in a macOS app packaging.
Space Rabbit can be downloaded right here:
@valeriansaliou