Your desktops
have names
now.
Desktop 3 is a guess
macOS labels spaces Desktop 1, 2, 3 and stops there. Nothing on screen tells you that Desktop 3 holds the mail and Desktop 5 is the build machine.
Renaming is not a feature
There is no supported way to name a space — no public API, no System Settings switch, no checkbox anywhere in Mission Control.
Windows land in the wrong place
Sending a window to another desktop means dragging it to the screen edge and waiting, or enabling a Mission Control shortcut most people never touch.
Jumpee · product tourName
Give every desktop a name. Names are stored against the space itself, so they survive reordering in Mission Control.
Jump
A global hotkey opens the list from anywhere, and number keys jump. ⌘J, then 3.
Show
The current desktop's name sits in the menu bar, and a faint watermark prints it on the wallpaper itself.
Manage
Send the focused window to another desktop, pin a window on top, and keep an eye on the keyboard language.
Jumpee · product tour
Section 01The display symbol
Shown beside the name, so a two-screen setup still tells you which display you are reading.
The desktop number
Settings › General decides whether it comes along — 2: llama.cpp or just llama.cpp.
The name you gave it
Whatever you typed when you renamed that desktop — and it follows the space, not its position in the row.
Section 01
Where you are
The header repeats the menu bar's context — the desktop's name, its number and the display it belongs to.
Filter desktops
Type to narrow a long list. The group header above the names says which display these spaces belong to.
The desktops themselves
Only the active display's spaces, numbered as that display numbers them. A tick marks where you are, and ⌘1–⌘9 jump straight there.
Rename, Move Window, Pin Window
The three actions, one click each — ⌘N to rename, ⌃⌘P to pin.
The footer line
Reports which overlays are running, beside the button that opens Settings. About and Quit live there now, in the Advanced pane, rather than in this list.
Section 01| Action | Key | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open the desktop list | ⌘J | Global — works from any app. Configurable in Settings › Shortcuts. |
| Jump to a desktop | ⌘1 … ⌘9 | While the list is open. Numbers follow the active display. |
| Move the focused window | ⇧⌘1 … ⇧⌘9 | While the list is open; also the Move Window To… submenu. |
| Pin or unpin a window | ⌃⌘P | Global toggle. Present only when Pin windows on top is enabled. |
| Rename this desktop | ⌘N | Renames the desktop you are on. |
| Open Settings | ⌘, | The standard macOS shortcut. |
Section 01macOS identifies a space by a stable internal ID. Jumpee stores your name against that ID — so when you drag desktops around in Mission Control, the names travel with what is actually on them.
- Return renames, Escape cancels — a focused panel, not a stacked alert.
- Remove Name clears a desktop back to Desktop 2.
- Renaming applies to the desktop you are on right now.
- Names are written to the config file the moment you confirm.
Rename Desktop 2
A synthetic representation of the rename panel, drawn in the deck's palette.
Section 01Seven anchors
Any corner, top or bottom centre, or dead centre of the screen.
Opacity and colour
Default is a 15% red. 10–20% reads as a watermark; 30–50% is meant to be noticed.
Font, size and weight
Any installed font, from ultralight to black, plus a margin from the screen edge.
Click-through
The overlay never takes a click and never appears in screenshots of your other windows.
Section 01Focus the window you want to move
Click it once. Jumpee always acts on the frontmost window of the frontmost app.
Open Jumpee and pick Move Window To…
From the dropdown, from the submenu, or with ⇧⌘1–⇧⌘9 while the list is open. A global hotkey can open the same list at your cursor.
Pick the destination
The window moves and your view follows it. The current desktop is left out of the list — you cannot move a window onto the desktop you are already on.
Section 01Focus a window, press the pin shortcut, and it stays floating above everything else — including windows belonging to other apps.
- Press ⌃⌘P again on the same window to unpin it.
- Several windows, from different apps, can be pinned at once.
- The menu item changes with the focused window: Pin Window on Top or Unpin Window.
- Pin state lives in memory only — quitting Jumpee releases every window it was holding.
Two unpinned windows behind, one pinned window holding the front.
Section 01Just below the menu bar
Centred, notch-aware, on whichever display holds the space you are on.
Changes the instant you switch
No polling — it listens for the system's input-source notification. Duplicate notices are ignored.
No new permissions
The keyboard input-source APIs need nothing beyond what Jumpee already holds.
Independent of the watermark
Size, font, weight, colour, opacity and the background pill, plus a per-language label and colour of your own.
Section 01
Section 02Section 02
Section 03# add the tap, then install the cask brew tap BikS2013/jumpee brew install --cask jumpee # launch it open -a Jumpee # and when you want it gone brew uninstall --cask jumpee
Or download a release
A .dmg to drag onto Applications, or a .zip to unpack. Both are on the project's releases page.
Signed and notarized
From v1.6.0 every release is Developer ID signed, checked by Apple and stapled — so Gatekeeper opens it without a warning. Only v1.5.1 and older need the quarantine flag cleared.
macOS 13 or later
Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia and Tahoe. One universal download covers Apple silicon and Intel.
No dependencies
A single native Swift binary. Building it yourself needs only the Xcode Command Line Tools — no full Xcode.
Section 03Jumpee never reaches into another app. To change desktop, it asks macOS to run the system's own shortcut — and synthesising that keystroke sits behind Accessibility, which macOS will not let an app grant to itself.
Open the pane
System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility.
Switch Jumpee on
If it is not listed, click + and add /Applications/Jumpee.app.
Or follow the prompt
Jumpee asks on first launch and takes you straight there.
Switching desktops and moving windows both need this one permission.
Section 03There is no public API for changing desktop. Jumpee presses macOS's own ⌃1…⌃9 shortcuts — and those ship switched off.
Open the shortcut list
System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts › Mission Control.
Tick the desktop shortcuts
Switch to Desktop 1 through Switch to Desktop 9.
Leave them alone afterwards
Changing them to another key breaks navigation — Jumpee expects the system defaults.
Skip these and the list still draws correctly — but clicking a desktop goes nowhere.
Section 03Screen Recording
Pinning works from a captured image of the window, so macOS gates it behind Screen Recording. Leave it off and everything else still works; the first time you pin, Jumpee asks and opens the pane for you.
System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen Recording
Launch at login
Jumpee does not install itself as a login item. If you want it waiting at every start, add it yourself — it is one toggle in System Settings › General › Login Items.
Until then, start it from Spotlight whenever you want it.
Section 03
Section 04General
Which features exist at all: the menu bar icon, the desktop number, overlay, indicator, window moving and pinning.
Appearance
How the two overlays look — type, colour, opacity, anchor — with a live preview beside the controls.
Shortcuts
Three global hotkeys, recorded by pressing them, with conflict checking and a reset on every row.
Advanced
Permission status, the config file in Finder, and Reload Now for edits made by hand.
Section 04Section 04Section 04No checkbox-and-text-field fiddling. Click a shortcut, press the chord you want, and it is captured whole — modifiers and all, including named keys like Space, Return, Tab and Escape.
- Escape with no modifiers cancels recording.
- A shortcut needs at least one modifier, a key from the supported set, and no clash with the other two.
- Applying it re-registers the hotkey immediately — no restart, no manual reload.
- Every row has its own reset, and there is one Restore Defaults for all three.
- Rows for disabled features stay visible, greyed out, so you can see what is available.
Section 04System Setup
Accessibility, Mission Control shortcuts and Screen Recording, each with a live status dot and a button through to the right System Settings pane. No guessing why a feature is quiet.
Configuration File
The path in full, Reveal in Finder, and Reload Now — which re-reads the file and re-registers every hotkey without a restart.
Application
The running version, About Jumpee… and Quit. Everything the Settings panes write lands in that same JSON file, so hand-edits and UI edits never diverge.
Section 04{
"hotkey": { "key": "j", "modifiers": ["command"] },
"moveWindow": { "enabled": true },
"pinWindow": { "enabled": true },
"overlay": {
"enabled": true, "fontSize": 72, "fontWeight": "bold",
"opacity": 0.15, "position": "top-center",
"textColor": "#FF0000", "margin": 40
},
"showSpaceNumber": true,
"spaces": { "42": "Mail & Calendar", "15": "Development" }
}
~/.tool-agents/jumpee/config.json
The folder is created 0700 and the file 0600. It is written for you on first run and it is the only configuration method — no environment variables, no command-line flags.
Spaces are keyed by ID, not position
"42" is the space's stable internal ID. That is why names survive a reshuffle — and why you should rename from the menu rather than editing keys by hand.
Coming from an older build?
Legacy configs are migrated automatically — position-keyed spaces to ID-keyed, and the old ~/.Jumpee/ folder to the new path on first launch.
Section 04
Section 05One machine, four jobs
Comms, development, terminal, browser — four desktops, four names, no memorising. ⌘J then the number, from inside any app, without losing your place.
The menu bar answers "where am I?" before you have to ask.
Presenting and screen sharing
Your audience sees the space name printed on the desktop you are sharing, and the input-source pill stops the mid-sentence "why is my typing in Greek?" moment before it happens.
Both overlays are click-through, so nothing you demo is blocked.
A reference that must not vanish
Pin the document, dashboard or call transcript you are working from above everything else, then edit underneath it. Unpin when you are done — or quit, and Jumpee releases it for you.
Several pinned windows at once, from different apps.
Section 05| Limit | Why |
|---|---|
| Nine desktops per display | Switching rides on the system's ⌃1–⌃9 shortcuts, so there is nothing beyond the ninth. |
| Moving a window always follows it | macOS 15 and later force the view across with the window. Not a setting, a platform rule. |
| Space detection rests on private APIs | macOS offers no public way to read the current space, so Jumpee uses undocumented CoreGraphics calls. A future release could break them. |
| The watermark shows the current space only | Printing each name into the Mission Control thumbnails is not reachable on current macOS. |
| Pins are forgotten at quit | Pin state is kept in memory by design, so nothing is left floating after Jumpee exits. |
| The ⌘M default clashes with Minimize | Change it to ⇧⌘M — a known trade-off recorded in the project's own notes. |
Section 05Three steps
and you are done.
Install it
brew install --cask jumpee after tapping the repository, or take the disk image from the releases page.
Grant Accessibility and switch on Desktop 1–9
One permission and one set of system shortcuts. Settings › Advanced confirms both.
Name your first desktop
Press ⌘N, type the name, press Return. The menu bar answers to it from that moment on.