A Spaces setup for freelancers

Give each client their own Space, keep invoices and email on an Admin Space, and let Spacepal count how long you spend on each one. The built-in Freelancer template creates that layout in one click. The Time tab shows today, the last 7 days or the last 30 days per Space, and exports everything as a CSV you can use to fill in a timesheet.

Start with the Freelancer template

Open Settings, Profiles, Templates and apply Freelancer, or run open "spacepal://template/Freelancer". It fills your first five desktops (on the menu bar display, in order):

Desktop	Name	Icon	Note
1	Client A	Briefcase, blue
2	Client B	Briefcase, green
3	Client C	Briefcase, orange
4	Admin	Document, gray	Invoices and email
5	Personal	Heart, pink

The template opens no apps, because every client uses different ones. If you have fewer than five desktops, Spacepal tells you how many to add in Mission Control; apply the template again afterwards. Then rename "Client A" to the real client name: double-click it in the overview (⌥Tab), or use Settings, Spaces.

Make each client Space set itself up

Select a client's Space in Settings, Spaces and fill in "When you enter this Space":

Open URL or file. The client's project board, a shared drive folder, or a local path such as ~/Clients/Acme.
Add App. The tools that client needs, for example Figma for one and Xcode for another.
Browser profile. If you keep a separate Chrome, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi or Arc profile per client, enter its folder name ("Profile 1", "Profile 2") so the right logins open.
Category. Type "Clients" so the overview groups client Spaces under one heading (turn on "Group Spaces by category" in Settings, Overview).
Note. A line such as "Invoice due Friday" shows in the overview and the menu.

Apps and URLs open the first time you enter the Space after login, and you can limit them to when the Space is empty. "Set Up This Space Now" opens them on demand. See automations for every option.

Time per Space

Settings, Time records how long each Space is the current one on the menu bar display. Tracking is on by default and can be turned off with "Track time spent in each Space". The data stays on your Mac; nothing is sent anywhere.

Period: Today, Last 7 days or Last 30 days, with a bar per Space and a total.
Export CSV: one row per day per Space, with the columns date,space,minutes. Minutes are rounded to the nearest whole minute.
Reset clears the history, for example at the start of a billing period.

date,space,minutes
2026-10-26,"Acme",212
2026-10-26,"Admin",38
2026-10-27,"Northwind",145

Know what it measures: it counts time that a Space is on screen, and pauses only while the display sleeps. It does not detect when you step away from the Mac, so treat it as a strong hint for your timesheet, not a billing record. If you rename a Space, its past time appears under the new name.

Keep clients apart on calls

Turn on Hide apps that have no window here for a client's Space, so when you share your screen with one client, another client's apps are hidden.
Give each client Space its own wallpaper (Settings, Spaces, Wallpaper) so you always know whose work is on screen.
Turn on Space Lock in Settings, Windows. When a notification or Cmd-Tab would pull you to another client's Space mid-call, Spacepal takes you back. It then tries to bring that window to you, which relies on a direct WindowServer move that works on macOS 14.0 to 14.4 and on 26.4 and later. On other versions the window stays on its own Space.

Notes per client

"Open Notes File" in a Space's editor creates a Markdown file for that Space and opens it in your default editor. In the direct version the files live in ~/Documents/Spacepal Notes; the Mac App Store version keeps them in its own container. You can also set a short note from a script: open -g "spacepal://note/current?text=Waiting%20on%20feedback".

Profiles when the client list changes

Save the current set as a profile (Settings, Profiles, Save Current Spaces), for example "Q4 clients". When a project ends, save a new profile with the new names instead of overwriting the old one, so old time and settings stay recognizable.

Written by Dan Bayer, developer of Spacepal. Last updated 2026-10-27.