{"id":5137,"date":"2013-06-07T19:46:54","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T17:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/digital-world\/howto-restore-missing-mission-control-desktops-without-restarting\/06-2013\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T21:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T19:02:14","slug":"howto-restore-missing-mission-control-desktops-without-restarting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/en\/technology\/howto-restore-missing-mission-control-desktops-without-restarting\/06-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"HowTo: Restore Missing Mission Control Desktops Without Restarting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My MacBook Air occasionally annoys me when I disconnect it from my external display. The various desktops suddenly disappear from the top of the Mission Control view. The screenshot above illustrates the problem:<\/p>\n\n

Restarting the computer fixes the problem. Even though Apple computers do not take particularly long to restart and automatically reopen the applications you were using, it is still annoying.<\/p>\n\n

But there is a much more elegant and faster solution:<\/h2>\n\n
    \n
  1. Open Terminal \u2013 the easiest way is simply to type \u201cTerminal\u201d into Spotlight (usually the magnifying glass at the top right, next to the clock).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Enter the command \u201ckillall Dock\u201d (without the quotation marks, of course).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Problem solved<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My MacBook Air occasionally annoys me when I disconnect it from my external display. The various desktops suddenly disappear from the top of the Mission Control view. The screenshot above […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[321,287],"tags":[322,374,288,308,414,415,290],"class_list":["post-5137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-hacks","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-computer","tag-hidden-gem","tag-how-to","tag-mac","tag-osx","tag-technology","bwp-blog-post","bwp-masonry-item","bwp-col-1","bwp-post-has-title"],"yoast_head":"\nHowTo: Restore Missing Mission Control Desktops Without Restarting - michael-hoepfl.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/michael-hoepfl.com\/en\/technology\/howto-restore-missing-mission-control-desktops-without-restarting\/06-2013\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"HowTo: Restore Missing Mission Control Desktops Without Restarting - michael-hoepfl.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My MacBook Air occasionally annoys me when I disconnect it from my external display. The various desktops suddenly disappear from the top of the Mission Control view. 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