Debut rebuilds macOS Command-Tab around Spaces, and lets you switch desktops without the slide

A free, GPL-licensed switcher keeps Command-Tab to the Space you're on, puts every window from every Space behind Option-Tab, and turns the desktop-change animation down to Instant. On macOS 27 it adds, merges and removes Spaces from the same overlay.

By Chris Pirillo · October 26, 2026 · 5 min read

Offset-printed Chris sitting at a laptop, holding two keys down with one hand, as a neat row of whole desktop screens pops up above the keyboard instead of a row of app icons. — Illustration: LockerGnome

The site makes the case against Apple’s version in one line: “macOS Command Tab mixes apps from all your Spaces. Debut keeps each Space separate, and Option Tab shows every window from every Space.” Apple’s switcher thinks in apps. If you keep email on one desktop and a project on another, pressing Command-Tab still hands you both, and picking one yanks you across Spaces to wherever that app’s window lives.

Debut’s switcher thinks in windows and desktops. The README calls it “window previews grouped by space, window moves between spaces, and instant space switching.” Command-Tab opens on the current Space at the next window, Command-Option-Tab cycles through Spaces, and Control-1 through 9 jumps straight to a desktop. Command-Option and an arrow key moves the window you’re in to the next Space and follows it there.

Why it matters

Spaces finally get a keyboard. Most people never use more than one desktop because moving between them is slow and Command-Tab ignores them anyway. Debut makes the Space the thing you switch between, so splitting work across desktops stops costing you every time you change tasks.

The slide is a setting now. “Skip the half-second slide every time you change Spaces,” the site says. The Desktops page in Debut’s settings takes the transition from Instant up to 400 ms, and it covers the number keys, Control-arrow and trackpad swipes, so the speedup applies to the gestures you already use.

It sits beside Mission Control. “Debut works alongside Mission Control and your existing Spaces,” the FAQ says. It’s a newer kind of Mac window tool than Beam, which carries a single window between two Macs, and both ask for the same Accessibility grant to move windows around.

Inside the switcher, hold Command and the keys turn into a small desktop editor. The up and down arrows push the selected window to the previous or next Space, and dragging a preview does the same. On macOS 27, N adds a desktop after the selected one, Delete removes it, and dragging one Space onto another merges them. Press Space and the switcher stays open after you let go of Command, so you can stage several moves and apply them with one more press.

The requirements are short. Debut needs an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 26 or later, and the Space editing (add, remove, reorder, merge) needs macOS 27. Accessibility permission is required for the shortcuts and window control. Screen Recording is optional and only feeds the previews, and without it you get app icons and titles. “Previews never leave your Mac,” and crash reports go out only if you allow them.

Version 1.0.0 shipped on October 20 from a developer who goes by thomplth, linked from the Debut site itself. The code is GPL-3.0, and the credits name the projects it learned from: Option-Tab takes after lwouis’s alt-tab-macos, and the instant switching builds on InstantSpaceSwitcher, iss and space-rabbit.

The README is candid about how it gets that speed: “Features that depend on private macOS behavior stay off on releases where it has not been measured.” Every macOS update is a chance for Apple to move something Debut leans on, and the project is planning for it in writing rather than finding out from its users.

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Debut rebuilds macOS Command-Tab around Spaces, and lets you switch desktops without the slide

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