How to Switch Between Desktops in Windows 10?

Windows 10 provides an amazing feature with which you can easily manage and organise your work. This feature is Multiple Desktops, also termed as Virtual Desktop. Yes! You can have more than one desktop at a time on a single machine, and of course, switch between them.

Imagine having 10 to 15 applications open on your desktop. What a mess! To manage this stuff, you can go for multiple desktops and move a few of the applications to another desktop.

If you are working on multiple projects simultaneously, then you can create different desktops for different projects. Such as one for a game related project, one for an under-development website, one for communicating with your teammates and another, maybe for some amusement like songs, games or a movie.

After creating a number of desktops, you need to know how to switch between them. Windows 10 is very fast and switching between the desktops is even faster. This article is going to tell you three very simple methods to quickly switch to a different desktop in Windows 10.

Steps to switch between the Desktops in Windows 10

Method 1: Using Task View Button

Task View button is present on the taskbar in Windows 10. This button looks like:

Sometimes, the Task View button is hidden by default. You can make it visible in two steps:

• Right-click on Taskbar.
• Select the Show Task View button.

Step 1: Click on the Task View button present on the taskbar.

As soon as you click, a new screen will appear.

This screen contains four things:

1. Taskbar at the bottom: This taskbar belongs to the desktop which is currently open.
2. Desktop ribbon: Above the taskbar, appears a ribbon which holds all the desktops which you have created. They are given names like Desktop 1, Desktop 2 and so on.
3. New Desktop button: Look at the right-most corner on the Desktop ribbon, you will find a New Desktop button represented by a Plus sign. By clicking on this button, you can create a new desktop.
4. Active applications on the current desktop: The major part of this screen is covered by the snaps of applications which are active on the current desktop. If you hover the mouse on different desktops present on the ribbon, the applications of the respective desktop will appear in this area.

Step 2: Just click on the desktop which you want to open from the Desktop ribbon.

Method 2: Ctrl + Windows + Arrow Key(Left/Right)

This is a keyboard shortcut to switch between the desktops in Windows 10.

Step 1: Press the Ctrl key and Windows key simultaneously.

Step 2: Without leaving the above two keys, press the left/right arrow key once.
This will take you to the neighbouring desktop. Pressing the arrow key again will take you to the next desktop. In this way, you can go through all the desktops one by one using the keyboard shortcut.

Method 3: Four – finger Swipe

If you have a touch-screen, then this is the best way to switch between the desktops in Windows 10.

Swipe with four fingers in either direction and the neighbouring desktop will slide into the screen. If you want to go back to the previous desktop, swipe again with four fingers in the opposite direction.

That’s it! Now you know how to switch between the desktops quickly in Windows 10 and you can do multitasking more efficiently.