Can I show the Mission Control desktop number in the menu bar?

Spaces used to show the space number in the menu bar; I would glance at it regularly to see which space I was in (1, 2, 3, etc).

How do I get Mission Control to display the current desktop in the menu bar like that?

Solution 1:

Maybe the open source WhichSpace project can do this:

WhichSpace

Have you ever forgotten which space is currently active on OS X (10.11+) and wanted a quick way to tell? Didn't think so... but I did!

Screenshot

Solution 2:

I could not find any built-in feature for this, so I decided to use the backgrounds.

• I found a background image that I wanted, and made 8 copies of it.

• Then I wrote the numbers 1-8 on each of them, next to where the dock usually is.

• Then you press ctrl+1 to make sure you're in desktop 1, right click the background, and choose the image with 1 written on it.

• Then close down the system preference box (otherwise you end up changing only desktop one).

• Then press ctrl+2 and do right click again.

Not allowed to post screenshot :( to show how it looks.

Solution 3:

This problem now has a much more robust solution, thanks to Total Spaces. This app brings back the old 2D grid of spaces and shows the space number in the menu bar.