In the dock you can right click an app, and Options, Assign to Desktop N.
Luckily, when I plug my macbook into the dock with monitor, I actually want it to be a static desktop, showing just the website I'm working on. And I want the monitor to switch through desktops that have my applications.
This basically just works with one caveat. When switching from plugged in to unplugged, the macbook screen becomes desktop 1, and all the desktops shift over by one. So I just rearranged everything to be +1 (i.e. gmail/calendar are actually always desktop 2), and everything works seamlessly.
I managed to get my system "working" without knowing about it.
I have a macbook and an external display, and I utilize "desktops" heavily.
Basically desktop: 1 = gmail/calendar | 2 = slack, messenger, imessage, etc. | 3 = chrome | 4 = terminal | 5 = vscode
In the dock you can right click an app, and Options, Assign to Desktop N.
Luckily, when I plug my macbook into the dock with monitor, I actually want it to be a static desktop, showing just the website I'm working on. And I want the monitor to switch through desktops that have my applications.
This basically just works with one caveat. When switching from plugged in to unplugged, the macbook screen becomes desktop 1, and all the desktops shift over by one. So I just rearranged everything to be +1 (i.e. gmail/calendar are actually always desktop 2), and everything works seamlessly.