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I encountered a strange problem today. I downloaded FileZilla and on first launch the title bar was above my mouse pointer's reach. Making the window unmovable.

Here is a screenshot of my situation.

screenshot

Is there a way to fix this? I've tried reopening the application and rebooting.

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    Try this: move the cursor on the side of the window, it will turn into an arrow for resizing then click and keep pressed for second. Now instead of dragging horizontally to resize drag down the window. You should be able to move every window this way. – Rnhmjoj Dec 4 '14 at 23:33
  • Anyone know why does this happen in the first place.. here I am in 2016 using version 10.10.5 and still facing the same issue.. thanks for the community I was able to find the solution in few minutes... – franklins Jan 13 '16 at 18:11
  • It is 2019 and I've just encountered that same issue with a fresh download of FileZilla. In fact, this is why I googled for how to move window without touching titlebar :) – nilfalse Feb 26 '19 at 13:38

20 Answers 20

Active Oldest Votes
78

Hold on option (or alt) while clicking the Window menu. This should change Bring All to Front into Arrange in Front, which did the trick for me.

This worked for me on OSX 10.9.1

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  • I've searched all around, and this is the only trick that worked. I tried changing resolution, running a variety of apple scripts, and nothing else worked, but this. Thanks! – Ernesto May 6 '14 at 2:09
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    unfortunately there are apps like Adobes Creative Cloud, that have their own very special Window menu, that will not show any change when pressing option/alt. There the only chance is pressing option/alt while you resize from the bottom, which will resize from top too, so titlebar comes back in view. – hexerei software Apr 16 '15 at 18:28
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    @hexereisoftware : What a tip!!! You should post that as an answer, because it is far more general purpose than the accepted answer here! – GreenAsJade Sep 2 '15 at 12:07
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    Ugh, what a terrible workaround. But Filezilla has no Window menu, so the alt+resize from the bottom is the only way to do this. If you run out of shrinking room, as I did, you can go as far as you can, then pull the window bottom back down (without alt) and then resume the mirrored shrinking. – Dannid Sep 11 '15 at 22:36
  • This didn't work for me on a Chrome window - ironically, it also moved the title bar of the window I am viewing this question in offscreen! – Stan Kurdziel Jan 11 '16 at 17:59
37

Windows that support resizing from all edges can also be moved by for example dragging them horizontally from the bottom edge.

You could also try running something like this in AppleScript Editor:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "FileZilla"
    set position of windows to {100, 100}
end
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    Whoa, I had no idea you can drag windows from the bottom like that. +1 – Dillon Aug 15 '14 at 16:04
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    Unfortunately, dragging from the bottom doesn't work for all apps. – Krazy Glew Jul 30 '15 at 21:05
32

In the case of Filezilla (for example) there is no window menu. You can however hold option while dragging the lower left or right corner of the window and it will proportionally scale the window (down in this case) and reveal the titlebar.

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  • This worked for me, with FrameMaker running via Parallels in coherence mode - where the MS Windows apps are given what look to be native Mac windows. (This is a good example of apps that do not follow Apple's recommendations.) // Did not work exactly - not proportional - but dragging an edge back into a separate display did the trick. – Krazy Glew Jul 30 '15 at 21:08
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    By the way, the problem in my case seems to be caused by multiple displays whose tops are not exactly aligned. On from monitor, the titlebar is on screen, but on to monitor it is off the top edge. Using Mac mode where a window is frestricted to one display, and when OSX decides to make window appear only on to monitor, the titlebar is gone. – Krazy Glew Jul 30 '15 at 21:14
14

I had a similar case with a different app where the title bar was exactly between my two monitors, unfortunately all other tips here did not work and others seemed to complicated to make sense.

I thought the drag-resize solution sounded best, but although my window is resizable from all sides and corners. dragging anywhere else but the titlebar did not work and also holding down longer does not change anything.

But the only key that makes a difference is pressing the alt/options key while resizing the window from the bottom side, because the this resizes not only the side that you drag on, it actually also resizes the opposite side, which brings the toolbar back in screen.

alt + resize-drag
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13

The OOTB solution (no extra apps required)

If you move the mouse to the right/left edge until you see the horizontal resize icon, then dragging vertically will allow you to move the window instead of resizing. Same goes for the bottom edge resize cursor + horizontal drag.

Third-party apps

BetterTouchTool allows dragging and resizing windows in the linux (KDE) manner, i.e. modifier keys + drag anywhere within the window area to move/resize, which means you'll never again need to do extra work to grab the window edges to arrange your windows. A while ago the app became nagware with a 60 days free trial. It can also do things like remapping shortcuts and customise [magic]-mouse gestures, and add custom touch-bar actions.

Update: I have abandoned BetterTouchTool in favour of a patched version of the open-source Hummingbird app (a fork of Easy-Move-Resize).

Yet another option is ShiftIt, a tiny open-source utility which allows positioning and resizing windows using keyboard shortcuts. As a bonus, it provides shortcuts to move windows between multiple displays. See also What Window Management Options exist for OS X?

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2
  • Didn't work for me, and in my case the lower right corner was so close to the taskbar that I couldn't grab it anyway. Only the Window/Zoom solution worked for me. – clearlight Nov 4 '17 at 12:58
  • This worked for me on OSX 10.12 – Jonathan H Jan 1 '18 at 23:33
8

Try going to Window > Zoom in the menubar.

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    This is the simplest solution in most cases – TimoSolo Aug 25 '15 at 10:10
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    Couldn't find options described in the accepted answer. This answer is simple & works. +1. – Synesso Oct 23 '15 at 3:33
  • This is the only option that worked for me among the answers above, when a RealVNC window dragged to another monitor got stuck in a bad position – clearlight Nov 4 '17 at 12:57
3

It's easy,

Hold the shift key + drag any edge of that window

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  • This doesn't work for me on OS X 10.11.1 - could you upload an image showing what this looks like? When I shift drag on the window edge, I get a resize and not a move. – bmike♦ Oct 21 '15 at 19:25
  • @bmike Works for me, also on El Capitan! – Timothy Mueller-Harder Oct 21 '15 at 19:44
  • @timothymh Maybe it's a file zilla feature? No iWork apps or Finder/Safari windows seem to obey this shift/drag option. – bmike♦ Oct 21 '15 at 21:06
  • Oh! Figured it out: make sure you're just outside the window, not just inside. – Timothy Mueller-Harder Oct 21 '15 at 21:12
  • It's a little weird, but if the middle of the cursor is just inside the bounds of the window, it will resize, and if it is just outside the bounds, the window will move. – Timothy Mueller-Harder Oct 21 '15 at 23:54
2

I use a second monitor with my laptop and run into this issue on occasion when connecting or disconnecting my monitor. It is endlessly frustrating. Just this morning it happened when reconnecting my laptop and ended up pissing away a half hour determined to find a solution. I am happy to report I did! For me this problem occurred in Word.

File > Save As

The "Save" window drops down from the title bar so it is brought into view on screen. Before hitting "save" (or "cancel") drag the title bar down to mid screen for added security.

I would assume work for any programs with a "Save" option, and for those that don't hopefully there will be something to glean from this

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1

Many applications store window positions in their preferences file(s). A file within ~/Library/Preferences/ is likely associated with this application. To identify the file, go to that directory in Terminal and use the command ls -lt. This lists files sorted by modification time, with recently-modified files at the top. You will likely recognize the associated preference file by name. You can edit the plist file in Xcode, and look for the NSWindow settings to selectively remove them, or simply trash the file. I recommend only modifying or deleting the file while the application is not running.

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1

In Terminal, run nano .config/filezilla/filezilla.xml. Find:

<Setting name="Window position and size">0 503 -347 937 469 </Setting>

…and change it to… 

<Setting name="Window position and size">0 503 347 937 469 </Setting>

Source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19476591

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1

Rnhmjoj's solution in his or her comment on the original question worked for me, IF I additionally hold down the option key. Holding down the option and command keys seemed to additionally resize X and Y at the same time.

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I found the easiest solution was to temporarily increase the screen resolution.

To do so,

  1. go to System Preferences > Displays > Display
  2. select Scaled
  3. select a resolution that is higher than the current one

Once the higher resolution has been switched to, you should be able to reach the title bar of the window in question and move it down to the center of the screen. After that, switch back to the original resolution.

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  • Only thing that worked for me, for a non-resizable modal dialog. Didn't even need to leave the preference screen. Bumped the resolution down (the window automatically adjusted itself) and back up again, then closed out of preferences. – Rick Berge Feb 7 '19 at 16:09
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Window > Zoom usually works, but not for all applications (TextWrangler, Eclipse, etc). I found an application called Divvy that allows resizing, using which brings the title bar back into the visible space.

Some googling shows that Slate might be a better option, but I haven't tried it yet

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While I realize that this is not a solution that's baked into the OS, a 3rd-party window manager may be able to reposition the window on the screen. In my case, I was able to move my Filezilla window using Optimal Layout.

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A friend of mine wrote a free tool for bringing back the windows. Maybe it's what you need it. So, if you want to check it out, go here : http://bring-em-back.com

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I had this happen in Microsoft Excel 2011 and used Window / Arrange / [Tiled / Horizontal / Vertical / Cascade] to get the window back.

P.S. It didn't have the option to: 'Hold on option (or alt) while clicking the Window menu. This should change Bring All to Front into Arrange in Front, which did the trick for me.

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My solution was to temporarily move the .filezilla file, you will find it in your users directory: users/your-user-name/.filezilla

It is a hidden file, and to view hidden files: 

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES; killall Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app

Once you can see the file, move it

Restart Filezilla and the window will have been restored to the center of the screen.

You will find that your settings no longer exist, at this point copy back the xml file: sitemanager.xml to the newly created .filezolla folder.

NOTE: You may find that filezilla has a new location for its files: users/your-user-name/.config/filezilla

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I had this problem with an app that didn't include a Window menu and wouldn't resize from the top when I held down option and dragged the bottom of the window up. I found this write up (http://osxdaily.com/2013/08/14/move-window-back-on-screen-mac-os-x/) which describes temporarily changing your screen resolution to force the windows to resize themselves. That's the only thing that worked for me.

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The steps above do not always work for FileZilla. In this case, select Window->Zoom and you will get a maximized window. Then drag the lower right corner to make the window smaller. Now maximize will no longer push it off the screen

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-1

Pressing alt while resizing actually also changes the location of the bar to make it visible! It worked

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