A user could, for example, create and assign a "space" to office work, enabling the user to leave a work-related application (such as a word processor or a spreadsheet) running full screen and then switch to a different space designated for browsing the Internet or navigating file structure in Finder windows.

Application assignments may be added and bound to specific spaces listed, by their corresponding numbers, in the right-hand column.

A limitation of Spaces lies in the fact that some applications featuring tool palettes and/or multiple open document windows (such as Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office applications) cannot be consistently bound to a specific (numbered) space.

When viewing the full-screen grid, spaces themselves may be re-arranged by dragging and dropping (requires clicking on the blue "desktop" area, instead of on a window within it).

Although Spaces was a new feature for Mac OS X 10.5, virtual desktops existed for quite some time on other platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, AIX and BeOS.