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

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.

Answer 2

Moom

App Store ($5)

As per their website: Move your mouse over the green zoom button in any window, and Moom's mouse control overlay will appear (as seen in the above animation). Here's what happens when you click the various icons in Moom's mouse control overlay:

• Move & Zoom to Full Screen
• Move & Zoom to Left Half
• Move & Zoom to Right Half
• Move & Zoom to Top Half
• Move & Zoom to Bottom Half
• Revert to Original Dimensions

Optional configurability to more locations and a different grid. Keyboard shortcuts available. Supports multiple displays.

Answer 3

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 4

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 5

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 6

BetterTouchTool

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 7

Spectacle (open source, available at GitHub, accepting donations)

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

Move and resize your windows with ease:

• Center / Cmd + Alt + C
• Fullscreen / Cmd + Alt + F
• Left Half / Cmd + Alt + ←
• Right Half / Cmd + Alt + →
• Top Half / Cmd + Alt + ↑
• Bottom Half / Cmd + Alt + ↓
• Upper Left Corner / Cmd + Ctrl + ←
• Lower Left Corner / Cmd + Shift + Ctrl + ←
• Upper Right Corner / Cmd + Ctrl + →
• Lower Right Corner / Cmd + Shift + Ctrl + →
• Left Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + ←
• Right Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + →
• Top Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + ↑
• Bottom Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + ↓

My favorite, very fast, unobtrusive app. I love the undo feature (Cmd + Alt + z) and overall, Spectacle does everything I need and nothing I don't.

Answer 8

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 9

Cinch ($7) by Irradiated Software

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 10

BetterSnapTool ($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.

Answer 11

Breeze ($8)

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

Answer 12

NuKit by Nulana (12 €, $15 I guess, on discount)

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 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

HyperDock ($9.95 USD)

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).

It can also be found in the Mac App Store.

Answer 15

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 16

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 17

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 18

Arrange ($6.99)

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 19

DoublePane ($2.99)

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

Link to the developers support site.

Answer 20

Window 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 ShiftIt for its Spaces and multiple monitor support, but this is a good, cheap option.

Answer 21

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.

Answer 22

Flexiglass ($9.99)

Flexiglass features complete and convenient window management with exclusive multi-touch gestures support, offering a simple way to manage many windows on a Mac with a mouse, keyboard, trackpad, and graphics tablet. It includes different tools to move, resize, and arrange windows on the screen easily and joyfully.

Features

• Move & Resize
  Usually, when you want to move or resize a window on a Mac you are limited by its title bar or lower-right corner. Flexiglass adds a Linux style Alt-Dragging to manage windows.

• Multi-Touch Gestures
  You can use finger gestures on your MacBook trackpad or Magic trackpad to move and resize windows. Flexiglass can save different settings for a trackpad and mouse and automatically change them when you plug or unplug devices.

• Quick Layouts
  Quick Layouts is an intuitive snap feature. It is a simple solution for working with multiple windows which can be resized to take up halves or quarters of the screen or full screen.

• Quick Layout Shortcuts
  User-defined shortcuts allow you to move windows to halves or quarters of the screen and back to original size.

• Real Zoom & Real Close
  These options make title bar buttons much more useful. Right-clicking on the green Zoom button will truly maximize a window to full screen. Right-clicking on the Close window button will quit the application.

• Double-click to Zoom
  Double-clicking on the window title bar is the easiest way to expand it to full screen.