i3wm: How to move workspaces between monitors?

Question

In a multiple monitor set-up, is there a way to transfer entire workspaces (as opposed to single applications) to a different monitor?

Answer 1

You can define a binding in your i3 config. Note: windows are called "containers", and monitors are called "outputs". The relevant documentation is here.

move workspace to output left|right|down|up|current|primary|nonprimary|next|<output1>

Here's what I use in my config:

# move focused workspace between monitors
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+greater move workspace to output right
bindsym $mod+Ctrl+less move workspace to output left

Strangely, I'd expect the $mod+Ctrl+greater to require me to hit Ctrl and Shift at the same time, since you need to press Shift to type < and >. However, pressing just mod, Ctrl, and , works, which is very nice.

Note, you can also set a keybinding to send things to a specific monitor by its name.

Answer 2

The workspace can be explicitly specified by name like this, for values of workspace_name and output_name:

i3-msg '[workspace="workspace_name"]' move workspace to output output_index

Note that if you name your workspaces like 1:first, you use 1 not first.

Answer 3

To move to the next workspace, you can use:

bindsym $mod+Ctrl+greater move workspace to output next

docs

This has the advantage of being agnostic as to the position of the workspace - it just cycles through them, no matter if they are up or down or whatever.