If you’ve ever clicked a document in NetDocuments on your Mac and watched the whole screen slide sideways to a desktop you weren’t using — or checked a document back in and been thrown somewhere else entirely — you’re not alone. Nothing is wrong with your firm’s NetDocuments setup. This is a NetDocuments Mac Mission Control problem, and it takes about thirty seconds to fix.
This Isn’t NetDocuments. It’s Mission Control.
Mission Control is the macOS feature that manages Spaces — the separate desktops your Mac lets you spread work across. Most attorneys have more than one without ever meaning to. Open Word full screen and macOS quietly puts it on its own Space.
Out of the box, Mission Control has a setting enabled that says: when you switch to an app, jump to whichever Space already has a window for that app open.
That’s fine until you add ndClick to the mix. Click a document name in NetDocuments and ndClick hands the file to Word. Word already has a window sitting on another Space, so macOS obeys the setting and flings you over there. Your browser is now behind you on a different desktop. Close the document and check it in, and you get flung again.
The document opened correctly every time. You just weren’t looking at it.
The Fix (30 Seconds)
Step 1: Open the Apple Menu and Click System Settings
Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of your screen.
Step 2: Click Desktop & Dock
It’s in the left sidebar. On macOS Monterey and earlier, this is located elsewhere — see the note below.
Step 3: Scroll Down to Mission Control
The Mission Control section is near the bottom of the panel.
Step 4: Turn Off “When Switching to an Application, Switch to a Space With Open Windows for the Application”
Toggle it off. There’s no Save button and no restart — it takes effect immediately.
On macOS Monterey and earlier, the path is Apple menu → System Preferences → Mission Control, and it’s a checkbox rather than a toggle. Same wording, same result — uncheck it.
The Result
Your documents open where you are. Check a document out from the browser and Word comes to you instead of dragging you across the desk. Check it back in, and you land back on the NetDocuments tab you started from, with the green checkmark gone and your changes saved.
It’s one setting, and it’s the difference between Macs feeling like second-class citizens at the firm and Macs just working.
If you’re setting up a Mac from scratch, this is one item on a short list. The rest are in The Secret to Using NetDocuments on a Mac.
Need Help?
Rolling out Macs, or supporting a couple of attorneys who won’t give theirs up? We can get ndClick and the M365 Outlook add-in deployed and your Mac users working the same way as everyone else in the firm — usually in a single call.
Schedule a free consultation at go.oncehub.com/optconsult.
Optiable has rolled out NetDocuments for over 600 law firms since 2010, specializing in firms with 10 to 150 users.
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