Apple used to have this App installed years ago and then abandoned it for the silly windows at the top of the screen. It was actually an AppleCare rep who referred me to TotalSpaces.
How do I install this version? Do I need to purchase a new key with a serial number?
I cannot get Total Spaces to work with Big Sur OS 11.2.3
Been using v2.9.8 on BIg Sur 11.2.3 just fine for a while now, but just today I rebooted my Mac and TS isn’t working. In Preferences->Layout, I see no grid in the window, and can’t add rows or columns, and under “For this grid” it says I need 16 desktops (I usually have a 3x3 grid).
I checked SIP and it’s still disabled. Are there any troubleshooting / diagnostic steps I can take to help figure out what’s happening?
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I cannot remember which account I used to purchase this software, but the update above worked - and it’s beautiful. Thank you for making this software available. I was happy to find it after Mac abandoned spaces for the full screen apps. This works the way my brain does.
After upgrading to Big Sur on a non-critical laptop, I found this thread, which immediately solved the issue. Huge fan of both TotalSpaces and TotalFinder. Thank you.
Works great on Big Sur 11.3, updated this afternoon! 
Updating to macOS 11.3 today broke Total Spaces and I can confirm that the above 2.9.8 package fixed it. Probably want to get that out to stable ASAP. Keep up the great work!
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Upgraded to 11.3.1 yesterday and can confirm TS2 is working via the 2.9.8 package. Thanks Stephen!
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@stephen - I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, it’s been dead for me since Big Sur 11.2.3 on TS 2.9.8. I just tried upgrading to 11.3.1 and reinstalling 2.9.8, and it’s still not showing anything in the Preferences for the grid. I can’t add rows / columns, it shows no spaces, and says the “16 desktop limit” message when I try to add anything.
Are there any diagnostics I can run or send you that can help? Totally dead in the water, and TS is just so hard to live without these days!
Please let me know what I can do to help, anything at all!
I confirm what @tomjwatson and @DynamicDaddio experienced. I ran the updater to Big Sur 11.3.1 on my early 2015 MacBook Air (11") which is a sandbox machine. TS2 and Mission Control both went bonkers. Fortunately, I read about the TS2 2.9.8 release, so I downloaded it and installed it. Everything is working again.
(I also mentioned earlier that I’d bought a M1 MacBook Pro and now I feel lost with TS. I’m now eagerly waiting for TS3!
I am having issues with adding desktops in TS 2.9.8 and OS 11.3.1 much like others mention here. This only happened after I removed my desktops I had previously. As you can see in screenshots, I can see the layout grid with desktop 1 and any number of fullscreened apps. However, I get the desktop creation error when I add desktops and for some reason only the unused columns remain, rows vanish? I don’t need a second desktop right now but I thought I would try it since the original issue I wanted to fix was that chrome opened all my minimized windows on desktop 1 if I changed spaces between fullscreened chrome windows. I think that’s fixed now, after trying codingvirtual’s uninstall and reinstall instructions (minus the sudo mount -uw step since it didn’t work and I didn’t have the file he removed in the subsequent step). creating desktops still fails after reinstall.
I upgraded to Big Sur 11.4 today and it broke Total Spaces. I tried rebooting to recovery, making sure SIP is off, and then reinstalling 2.9.8, but no luck.
If I open Total Spaces preferences, the layout tab doesn’t show any desktops, and claims “you need 16 desktops, you have 16 desktops”, but I really have 9 desktops. If I try to add or remove rows or columns I get the “Could not create all requested desktops. The system limit is 16 (plus specials)” message.
I also cannot navigate between desktops using my hot keys.
Please let me know if I can fix this, thanks!
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I have seen the same problem and I have found a work around.
The trick is that you open up mission control and keep adding spaces through mission control. In my case I had two rows of 3 and wanted to add a 3rd row of 3. It didn’t work. I then thought remove one row and then add it again. Maybe the application is confused. Guess what after that I was limited to 3. Only after I increased by #screens to 9 in mission control I could configure TotalSpaces again.
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Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately this did not solve the issue for me. I think there is a deeper problem, potentially with system permissions not being set properly.
It I quit TotalSpaces2 and then run it again, and if I do not try to open up Preferences right away, I get the following message,
Opening up System Preferences / Security & Privacy / Privacy / Automation, I find that Dock control permissions are already checked,
I tried unchecking it, rechecking it. This had no effect on being able to create new spaces or navigate between spaces using TotalSpaces2.
If I quit and restart TotalSpaces2 and immediately open Preferences, I typically do not get the “failed to start” permissions message. But I find exactly what @takets posted,
Using Mission Control to create or delete spaces has no effect. Using the + or - Row buttons has no effect, and using the + Columns button has no effect. However, if I hit the - Columns button a few times (2 or 3), TotalSpaces2 becomes unresponsive and has to be killed with Force Quit.
Weirdly, if I restart TotalSpace2 after Force Quit, it changes, so now Preferences shows,
TotalSpaces2 now thinks there are zero desktops somehow. The + (-) Rows button makes new boxes appear (disappear) in the Preferences window, and the counter increases (decreases). But clicking “Add desktops” results in the “system limit is 16” message. The +/- Columns buttons still do nothing, and - button no longer causes the program to hang. The Mission Control trick still doesn’t work for me though.
If I click on the “1” window in Preferences after Force Quit, I can make the needed desktops counter go negative,
Seems like I have a serious incompatibility issue after the 11.4 update.
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I’ve run into the same thing, upgraded to 11.5.1 and this is the same, exact behavior I’m getting. There is no number in the menubar icon, and I have been able to replicate the “negative desktops” by clicking on the single pane. I can make rows go up and down at some points, but never columns.
I removed the .plist and rebooted, I saw setting reset but the behavior persisted. So I don’t really know what to do. 
I was finally able to figure out a way to make TS2 work on BigSur 11.5. I followed the detailed steps from the posts, and maybe one of them helped trigger the state. The final piece that I needed was to put the TotalSpaces2.app into the /Applications folder, which was also buried on one of the posts.
I am currently using Big Sur 11.5.2 and TotalSpaces2 does not work properly.
I’m also working on disabling SIP and placing TotalSpaces2.app in Applications.
Does anyone know anything about this?
I just upgraded to BigSur at the last minute prior to the Monterey release - and after the upgrade I’m happy to report TotalSpaces is working just fine for me. I do not see any issues or degradation of functionality.
I’m on TotalSpaces2 v2.9.9., BigSur 11.6 and have a 2013 MacBook Pro (Intel i7).
If anything changes, I’ll report back.
I ran into the same problem, but I’ve finally solved it, so I’ll write it here.
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)
Mac OS : Big Sur 11.6.1
Totalspaces : 2.9.9
In “Layout” tab of “Preferences”, the grid was not displayed like the following image, unable to setup.
I couldn’t solve it by updating the .plist file or operating the + or - buttons.
After all, I was able to get it to work when I turned off the “Displays have separate Spaces” check in the “Mission Control” in the “System Preferences”.
I hope it will help people who have the same problem!