What Window Management Options exist for OS X?

Question

I'd like to do something with my windows on OS X, where something includes options like re-arranging, moving, re-sizing, remembering positions, cloning across Spaces, etc. What options exist?

Rules

• One app per answer.
• Use this format for the first two lines of your answer:
  ## [app name](link to website)
[App Store](link to appstore) (price)
• Check for duplicates before adding new answers.
• If you find a duplicate, vote it down and encourage its poster to upvote the original entry instead (and remove the dupe).
• Include short description about what this Window Managing app does.
  • What makes this Window Manager app different than the others?
  • Is it focused on re-sizing using only the keyboard?
  • Is it focused on moving using only mouse gestures?
  • Etc.

Answer 1

Spectacle

Open source, available at GitHub, accepting donations

App Store link (will not be updated past version 0.6.9)

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• Center = Command+Option+C
• Fullscreen = Command+Option+F
• Left Half = Command+Option+←
• Right Half = Command+Option+→
• Top Half = Command+Option+↑
• Bottom Half = Command+Option+↓
• Upper Left Corner = Command+Control+←
• Lower Left Corner = Command+Shift+Control+←
• Upper Right Corner = Command+Control+→
• Lower Right Corner = Command+Shift+Control+→
• Left Display = Command+Option+Control+←
• Right Display = Command+Option+Control+→
• Top Display = Command+Option+Control+↑
• Bottom Display = Command+Option+Control+↓
• Undo = Command+Option+Z

Per Spectacle' Github:

Spectacle users have recommended Rectangle as an open source alternative.

Rectangle is maintained as of 2020.

brew cask install rectangle

Answer 2

Moom by Many Tricks

App Store ($9.99)

Mouse controls

• Zoom button controls (pop up controls when hovering over a Zoom button):
  • Move & zoom to: full screen, left, right, top, bottom, top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left.
  • Move & zoom to grid with customisable cells.
  • Move to other display.
  • Revert to original dimensions.
• Snap to edges and corners (move & zoom when dragging a window to a display edge or corner).

Keyboard controls

• Keyboard mode (triggered with a configurable hot key):
  • Actions: move, zoom, grow, shrink, center, revert, move to other display.
  • Configurable keys: ↑ → ↓ ← (with optional modifiers ⌘ ⌥ ⌃ ), Return, Space, Tab, Esc.

Custom controls

• Fully customisable actions with menu and hot keys:
  • Actions: move, zoom, center, resize, grow, shrink, revert, arrange, move to other display.
  • Customisable grid.
  • Save and restore window layouts.
  • Hot keys can trigger a chain of multiple actions in sequence (eg: center followed by resize).

Answer 3

BetterTouchTool (free $2.99, $7.50..$21)

BetterTouchTool is known for bringing more functionality to multi-touch trackpads and mice. It also allows you to to snap to the right/left sides, and all four corners. I would highly recommend this application.

Answer 4

ShiftIt (free)

Provides keyboard shortcuts for arranging windows into the four quadrants of the screen, or filling any of the four halves (top, bottom, left, right), or centering a window.

Answer 5

Divvy by Mizage

App Store ($14)

Provides a grid window you can use to select (via mouse) the size+location of your window. Has a finer grained selection dialog, and you can add keyboard shortcuts for preset sizes/locations.

Activates via an icon in the menu bar, or by a configured global shortcut.

Answer 6

Slate

Slate is a relatively new option that's meant to replace all the previous window management tools. To use it you create a ~/.slate file, like a bashrc for window management. This gives you tons of options so you can make it work however you'd like.

EDIT:

Phoenix

As some people have commented slate has seemingly been abandoned with a year since the last commit. Luckily I discovered Phoenix which is very similar to slate with similar configs.

Mjolnir

For a while, Phoenix got deprecated and substituted by Hydra, but now it's back in development, by another author, while Hydra is deprecated. Mjolnir is the successor to Appgrid, Zephyros, Phoenix, Hydra and Penknife, by the original author, Steven Degutis. Mjolnir vs. other apps

Answer 7

SizeUp ($13) by Irradiated Software

SizeUp allows you to quickly position a window to fill exactly half the screen (splitscreen), a quarter of the screen (quadrant), full screen, or centered via the menu bar or configurable system-wide shortcuts (hotkeys). Similar to "tiled windows" functionality available on other operating systems

Much of the arranging options provided by SizeUp are available for free in ShiftIt. However, SizeUp does have some additional functionality that may be worth the $

Unique to SizeUp: It allows placement of a window at exact screen coordinates, X,Y, Width, and Height

Answer 8

Amethyst (open source, free)

Tiling window manager for OS X similar to xmonad. Was originally written as an alternative to fjolnir’s awesome xnomad but written in pure Objective-C. It’s expanded to include some more features like Spaces support not reliant on fragile private APIs.

Source code: http://github.com/ianyh/Amethyst/

Answer 9

BetterSnapTool

App Store ($1.99)

BetterSnapTool allows you to easily manage your window positions and sizes by either dragging them to one of your screens corners or to the top, left or right side of your screen. This lets you easily maximize your windows, position them side by side or even resize them to quarters of the screen.

In addition to that you can set custom keyboard shortcuts in order to move and resize your windows the way you want. Because there are so many positions available, BetterSnapTool can also popup a menu from which you can select the one position you want.

Image source

Answer 10

HazeOver: Distraction Dimmer

App Store $4.99

The app automatically puts a shade over all windows except for the currently focused one. The distinct idea is that with this app you don't have to manage the windows per se. No need to organize, minimize or hide windows. You focus on the window you're working with and stop caring about the rest.

• The effect can be toggled with a keyboard shortcut
• Intensity is adjustable with a mouse gesture
• Options for handling multiple monitors

Answer 11

HyperDock

App Store ($9.99)

In addition to some other fluff (like window previews):

HyperDock brings advanced window management features to Mac OS:

• Move & resize windows just by holding down keys and moving your mouse.
• Automatically resize windows when dragging to screen edges (Window Snapping).

Answer 12

Afloat (free)

• Keep windows afloat (heh) on top of all others.
• Pin windows to the desktop (new!)
• Move windows from anywhere, not just the title bar.
• Turn a window into an "overlay" on your screen that doesn't hinder your work.
• Show a window's file in the Finder with nothing more than your keyboard.
• Resize windows from anywhere, not just the corner (new!), and more.

Answer 13

Zooom/2 ($20)

• Move and resize windows by moving the mouse anywhere over the window. I hold down fn+⇧ to move and fn+ctrl to resize.
• Magnetism. If you like snapping windows the the edges of the screen or other windows (as in many X window managers), you will love this.
• Snap to a grid to line windows up (similar to Divvy).
• Automatically raise windows when the mouse moves over them. (It doesn’t let you activate without raising, so I don’t use this feature.)
• Show information overlay, so you can precisely set the dimensions if you need to.

Answer 14

Cinch by Irradiated Software

App Store ($7)

A great application for bringing Windows 7 functionality to Mac OS X.
It allows you to drag a window to the top, right, or left and it will resize for you.
Then, when you grab the window again, the window resizes itself to its original size.
Window management is the one thing Microsoft did get right. :-)

Answer 15

Magnet

App Store ($0.99)

This one is a simplified mash-up of Cinch and ShiftIt, bringing Windows 7 style docking along with a few helpful keyboard shortcuts. I'm going to stick with SizeUp for its Spaces and multiple monitor support, but this is a good, cheap option.

Answer 16

Sticker (FREE prior v1.0, then $4.99)

Version prior to 1.0 was FREE, can be downloaded here Sticker v0.91. It works flawlessly even on MacOS Mojave (10.14.4). The latest version can be downloaded from official website, and costs $4.99 after free trial.

• Mouse only or mouse and keyboard.
• Drag a window to the part of the screen you want the window to fill, hit an arrow key and it snaps the window to where you want it to be.
• For example, if you already have a window that fills up 2/3 of the screen to the left, drag another window to the right 1/3 of the screen, hit an arrow key and it fills up that area with your other window.
• It also allows dragging of windows to the side and top edges to snap windows to half screen or maximize (sides for half and top to maximize)
• Here's a link to the video for more details http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYpGo_g0n88

Answer 17

Stay ($15)

Stay automagically restores windows to a second monitor when it is connected. You need to set them up on the monitor and tell Stay to memorize the location before unplugging from the monitor.

Answer 18

Optimal Layout ($14)

Optimal Layout is a powerful window manager with tools to switch and arrange your app windows:

• Lists all your open app windows with a preview. Type to search the list.
• Also searches your open tab titles from Safari, Google Chrome and Terminal.
• Mouse positioning with a grid and buttons.
• Create new positions and save them to the menubar.
• Keyboard shortcuts to position windows, move them freely around the screen and snap them to the screen edges.
• Highly customizable user interface.

Answer 19

Breeze

App Store ($8)

• Setup your window sizes/positions beforehand, then associate them with hotkeys

Answer 20

SizeWell

Donations accepted.

I have tried a few alternatives, but I keep coming back to this solution. For me, the features and configurability are just right:

• zoom
• one quarter
• one third
• one half
• two-thirds
• resolutions (on my display, from 320 x 480 to 1920 x 1200)
• position (without resizing)
• whole screen (maximise, without full screen)
• next screen, previous screen.

It integrates with the Window menu, but I more often use it by right-clicking the zoom button of a window. Example:

---

SizeWell requires SIMBL.

Users may prefer EasySIMBL.

Answer 21

MercuryMover ($20)

“[…] MercuryMover enables anyone to easily and conveniently move and/or resize the frontmost Window, directly from the their keyboard. “Main Features:

• Move and resize virtually any window without touching the mouse
• Move and resize by 1, 10, 100 pixels at a time or to the edge of the current screen [in fact, freely configurable in the Prefernce file! thyx]
• Configurable modifier keys
• Unlimited undo/redo
• Single key window center and maximize [after activation, e.g. ctrl+⌥+←, X]
• Multi-screen aware [haven't tried that one]

Good idea. Haven't heard about most of the others.

Answer 22

Arrange ($8.99)

Rearranges and resizes windows both with keyboard shortcuts, by selecting a predefined (grid-based) or freeform position/arrangement from an overlay hud-style window with the mouse, or by moving the window to active zones on the screen edges.
Each option supports multiple monitor configuration.

Screencast showing Arrange in action

Answer 23

NuKit

No longer available

The feature set of this newcomer includes a mouse-driven window mover and resizer. I use ctrl+←+Mouse movement for moving windows, ctrl+←+⌘+Mouse movement for resize. Fast on my MacBook 2,1.

Download the trial from their site, rather than buying blindly from the App Store - well, that's common sense for any app.

The other main modules are a quite simple launcher and a shortcut manager, which are also sold separately. Nulana promises to refine them soon. Nice: the launcher offers dictionary entries (copy function promised) and an automatic calculator with fractions.

Answer 24

DoublePane

App Store ($4.99)

It's cheap, lightweight, does the job (left half, right half, full screen, restore original window size).

Answer 25

I just found this searching for Alfred plugins.

Layouts is an AppleScript file and an Alfred Workflow to give you a lightweight window manager for your Mac. Out of the box, it allows you to resize your active window to top half, right half, bottom half, left half, top left quarter, top right quarter, bottom right quarter, bottom left quarter, center window and zoom (full screen).

Answer 26

Window Maker

MacPorts $0.00

One of my favorite window managers (albeit for X11) is Window Maker.

In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP user interface.

You can download the Window Maker source code, but it is also available on MacPorts if you'd like to use package management.

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MacPorts

MacPorts is a robust, stable, mature and easy to use package management solution, for OS X. It is modeled after FreeBSD's ports system, which has been adopted as the basis of NetBSD's pkgsrc.

install Xcode 5.1.1

MacPorts requires an appropriate version of xcode; xcode_5.1.1.dmg is the most recent version for Mavericks (after registerring for a free developer account, and logging into developer.apple.com, that link will begin your xcode download). Once the download completes, open your Terminal.app and complete the installation:

 hdiutil attach -quiet -noverify -nobrowse -noautoopen ~/Downloads/xcode_5.1.1.dmg
 cp -npR /Volumes/Xcode/Xcode.app /Applications/
 hdiutil detach -quiet /Volumes/Xcode
 open -g /Applications/Xcode.app
 killall Xcode.app

install MacPorts

Get to know MacPorts

 curl -Ok https://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 tar xf MacPorts-2.2.1.tar.bz2
 cd MacPorts-2.2.1
 ./configure
 make
 sudo make install     # *not war!*
 cd ..
 rm -rf Macports-*
 sudo /opt/local/bin/port -v selfupdate
 diskutil quiet repairPermissions /

add MacPorts to your $PATH:

 export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
 export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/ man:$MANPATH

install Window Maker and extra themes

 sudo port -vsc install windowmaker wm_xtra

And you can keep everything updated simply with:

 sudo port -vsc selfupdate
 sudo port -vsc upgrade installed

If for whatever reason you are unsatisfied and/or need to remove MacPorts:

to completely uninstall MacPorts

 sudo port -dfp uninstall --follow-dependencies installed
 sudo port -dfp uninstall all
 sudo rm -rf /opt/local  
 sudo rm -rf /Library/Tcl/macports*

Answer 27

Better Window Manager

$3.00

Better window Manager allows you to position and size windows where you like them, then save it's state and associate it with a keyboard shortcut so you can restore that window state any time.

Answer 28

iSnap

App Store (FREE)

• has up to 7 hot corners on the screen (the big benefit in comparison to Spectacle);
• supports shortcuts, around 9 shortcuts in total;
• attaching positions: half left, half right, half top, half bottom, and 4 quarters of the screen.
• has iSnap and iShake out of the box (iShake - shakes the window on shortcut, to draw attention if lost around tons of other screens);
• managing the windows on your computer has become a snap! With the iSnap app, you can organize various windows to fit perfectly on your screen and access them simultaneously!
• by clicking and dragging your windows to various sections on your screen, you can optimize productivity with a snap. iSnap offers you 3 different templates to choose for optimal productivity.

Answer 29

FastScripts adds functionality to other window managers such as SizeUp, including a script for tiling all open windows. Scripts can be run by binding to keyboard shortcuts.

http://www.red-sweater.com/fastscript/

Answer 30

Magnets

App Store ($1.99)

Main features:

• Snapping windows like Windows 7, works well with dual display

Video review on youtube