Set up a Mac workspace you can come back to

The problem with most workspace tools is that they want to control your desktop. This is a lighter way to get the part that matters: everything for one project, one key away, and back again after you close it.

Decide what a workspace means to you

For most people it isn't a layout. It's a set: the staging site, the design file, the folder of assets, the terminal, the doc with the client's notes. Where they sit on screen changes hourly. Which windows belong together doesn't.

Name the set

In Canopy CMD, open the switcher, right-click any window card and add it to a new workgroup. Give it the name you'd use out loud: Client site, Q4 campaign, Taxes. Add the rest the same way, or start a group from whatever is on screen right now. Canopy can also notice windows you keep switching between and suggest a group; nothing is saved until you say yes.

Work inside it

Pick the group's chip at the top of the switcher and only its windows show. Release the key and the whole group comes forward, or keep cycling to land on one member. If the rest of your Mac is noise, hide every other app while you're in the group.

Close things without losing them

This is the part that makes it a workspace rather than a filter. Close a member, on purpose or by accident, and it stays in the group marked Restore. Press ↵ on it to reopen it at its page, file or folder, or ⌘ ↵ to reopen every closed member, including apps that weren't running. Groups survive restarts.

What doesn't happen

Canopy never moves a window, resizes one, or creates or switches a Space. Your arrangement stays exactly as you left it. If you like a tool that snaps windows into a saved grid, keep using it; Canopy works alongside it and does the finding.

A few groups that work well

• One per client. The CMS, the staging site, the brand folder, the shared doc.
• One per deliverable. The Photoshop file, the reference tab, the export folder, the feedback thread.
• One for admin. Email, calendar, the invoicing tab. Bring it forward once a day, then put it away.