How to turn off macOS Sonoma 'click to reveal desktop': switch off the most annoying change in Mac update history

Have you just installed the newly released macOS Sonoma, only to find your application windows keep disappearing to the sides?

It’s a useful new feature on Sonoma called click to reveal desktop, and if you don’t know it exists, it can prove to be more infuriating than helpful as you constantly clammer to find your windows again.

You might love the new feature, but if you don’t, there’s an easy way to switch it off and not constantly think, why are my windows disappearing intermittently just like my dock used to?

How to turn off click to reveal desktop on macOS Sonoma

You’ve just accidentally thrown all your Mac applications to the edges of your desktop and don’t understand how. Well, on macOS Sonoma, clicking any portion of your exposed wallpaper will reveal your desktop by hurtling all of your open applications to the edges of your display. Don’t want this to happen? Here’s the quick and easy fix:

Turn off click to reveal desktop macOS Sonoma

(Image credit: Future / Apple)

Open Settings
Select Desktop & Dock
Scroll down to Desktop & Stage Manager
You’ll see click wallpaper to reveal desktop. Change this setting to Only in Stage Manager

Changing these settings will fix your aggrievances with the new macOS Sonoma feature. Unfortunately, if you love Stage Manager, you’ll need to manually change this setting whenever you want to use a different desktop setup.

One more thing… Should you use click to reveal desktop on macOS Sonoma?

So you’ve now figured out how to turn off click to reveal desktop and no longer need to wonder why your applications keep disappearing. But should you turn it off? Often, these annoyances with new features in operating systems are more grievances due to the lack of knowledge they exist rather than the feature itself.

When I started to use multiple displays for work, I absolutely hated the way my dock on macOS moved between displays randomly, but now that I know how to control my dock position, it’s a handy feature that I actually use daily.

In terms of click to reveal desktop, at first glance, it might appear useless, but now that macOS Sonoma has desktop widgets like iOS 17, the ability to quickly see your desktop with a click is actually pretty great.

Bulk up your desktop widgets on macOS Sonoma and give click to reveal desktop a second chance. You never know you might learn to love it.