IkunaHow to Save and Restore Your Mac Workspace
A workspace is the full set of apps, browser tabs, and window positions behind one project. Here is how to save it and bring it back with a single shortcut, and where the native macOS features fall short.
Most people rebuild their workspace by hand several times a day. You sit down, open the editor, find the right terminal, dig through your browser history for the tabs you had open, and drag windows back into place. By the time the setup is ready, the momentum is gone.
A saved workspace removes that friction. Capture the configuration once, and return to it in seconds whenever you switch back. Here is the method, step by step.
Decide what counts as a workspace
A workspace is everything you need on screen to do one kind of work. For a client project that might be a code editor, a terminal, a design tool, three browser tabs, and a notes app, each in a specific position. For writing it might be just two apps and a single tab. The first step is recognising that these sets are stable: you reach for the same configuration every time you return to that project.
Pick one project you switch into often and list its apps, tabs, and rough window layout. That list is your first workspace.
Understand what macOS saves and what it does not
macOS has partial memory. "Reopen windows when logging back in" restores some apps on restart, and Stage Manager groups live windows while they are open. But neither saves a named, on-demand workspace. Quit an app and its window layout is gone. Restart and your browser tabs may not return to the right windows. There is no built-in way to say "give me my client project setup" and have the full context rebuild itself.
Treat the native features as session memory, not project memory. For saved, switchable project setups you need a dedicated tool that captures state on demand.
Capture the live state instead of a manual checklist
The brittle approach is a manual launcher: you tell it which apps and URLs to open. The problem is that it never matches reality. Your real workspace drifts, you open a new tab, move a window, add an app, and the static list falls behind. The reliable approach is to capture the workspace exactly as it is right now, so the snapshot reflects your actual working state including window positions and the specific tabs you have open.
Save the workspace from its live state. What you see is what gets restored, with no list to maintain.
Restore in one move, across monitors
The value of a saved workspace is the speed of return. The gap between sitting down and actually starting is where procrastination lives. If restoring your context takes two minutes of opening apps and hunting for tabs, you have already lost the thread. A single-shortcut restore that relaunches apps, reopens tabs, and rebuilds the layout across every monitor closes that gap to a few seconds.
Bind your workspace to one shortcut. Returning to a project should take one action, not a setup routine.
Doing it with Ikuna
Ikuna is built for exactly this: saving complete work contexts and restoring them on demand. Each saved context is called an Ikuna.
- Save the live state: capture the apps, browser tabs, and window layout as they are right now, with no manual list to maintain.
- Restore in under 3 seconds: one shortcut relaunches the apps, reopens the tabs, and rebuilds the window layout across your monitors.
- Device Link: multi-monitor layouts restore automatically when you reconnect to your setup.
- Unlimited basic save and restore on the free tier: the core workspace memory costs nothing to start.
Native macOS · Local data · Built in EU
Common questions
Does macOS save workspaces natively?
Not as named, on-demand setups. macOS can reopen some windows on restart, and Stage Manager groups live windows, but neither saves a project workspace you can quit and restore later. For that you need a dedicated context or workspace manager.
Can I restore browser tabs as part of a workspace?
Yes, with the right tool. Ikuna reopens the browser tabs that were part of a saved context, so you do not have to hunt through history when you switch back into a project.
What is the difference between saving a workspace and tiling windows?
Tiling arranges the windows you currently have open. Saving a workspace captures the whole context, including which apps and tabs to bring back, so you can rebuild it after everything is closed. They solve different problems and can be used together.