Safari window drag-and-drop issue across desktops on Mac Studio

Question

Level 1

21 points

Safari window drag-and-drop issue across desktops on Mac Studio

Hello All,

I just encountered a rather odd phenomenon with my new 2025 M2 Mac Studio

[running Sequoia 15.5 (24F74), and Safari Version 18.5 (20621.2.5.11.8)].

I had a Safari window open and tried to drag it to another desktop, and for whatever reason, as soon as I hover over any other desktop other than the desktop that I opened Safari in, the mouse cursor changes to a gray forbidden circle.

I thought maybe this was an OS-wide glitch, and therefore tried to drag the windows from multiple other apps, such as Word, Excel, Firefox, Google, you name it, to any / all of the other Desktops, and all of them are perfectly fine being moved to a different desktop (regardless of the Desktop I opened each of them in initially).

I then quit Safari, went to another desktop, opened Safari on that (new/different) desktop, and then couldn't move the Safari window to any of the other desktops that weren't the one that I open Safari in.

Thoughts?...

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Safari won't let me drag-and-drop / move Safari window onto a different Desktop (other app window are fine)...?

Mac Studio

Posted on Jul 23, 2025 04:08 PM

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Answer 1

LuxStar

Level 2

312 points

Jul 23, 2025 04:38 PM in response to jman995

Hi

That does sound like a bug, especially since other apps work fine. Safari windows sometimes get “locked” to a specific space due to App Assignments in Mission Control.

Try this:

Right-click Safari in the Dock.
Go to Options > Assign to
Make sure it’s set to None (not a specific Desktop).

If that doesn’t help, it could be a Sequoia or Safari 18.5 issue. A quick reboot or safe mode boot might reset whatever is causing it.

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Answer 2

jman995 Author

Level 1

21 points

Jul 23, 2025 04:46 PM in response to LuxStar

@LuxStar

Thanks for the reply.

I forgot to stipulate in my original post that I tried assigning Safari to "All" Desktops or "None", and that did not change anything...still stuck on the Desktop upon which it was initially opened on.

Yeah, it's not a huge issue by any means, just perplexing, and I'm trying not to reboot simply because I have multiple projects going on right now, and don't want to have to get back to where I am now after rebooting. So, I'll just deal with it until there's a lull in my Tasks and I can reboot without much interruption.

Thanks for chiming in.

-J

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