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Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

• tlb 3y ago
  I don't miss it. I carefully dragged each window to align just right one time, and never had to redo it since. It persists across reboots, and remembers placements separately for the two monitor arrangements I use (laptop, laptop + big monitor) so I only had to do the fiddly work once.
  • csallen 3y ago
    And you've just never, ever, needed to rearrange or move your windows since?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • ChuckNorris89 3y ago
      Apple users are that vanilla ;)
      • boobek 3y ago
        For me personally it's not a requirement the snappy window.. Apple is a small walled garden. They don't have wide screens so most of the time one app on the screen is enough. I have an old 27' iMac and it wasn't enough screen space for me to put xcode, terminal and browser next to each other. So the most used mode was split screen mode with xcode and a simulator. But the "split full screen" mode is much better and professional than windows' snappy window feature.
        • ChuckNorris89 3y ago
          What's the difference between the apple split full screen and the windows tiling?
          • deafpolygon 3y ago
            Windows tiling still keeps you on the overall Desktop, while the split full screen is a separate Desktop altogether with no access to the other applications (without exiting fullscreen).
    • tlb 3y ago
      A few times, I guess. I might do it more often if I had separate OS windows for code editing. But I use VSCode (and Emacs before that) with 2 or 3 side-by-side panels. I drag those panes wider and narrower frequently.
    • prewett 3y ago
      I tend to setup separate Spaces and put related apps/windows in the same Space. So I have a general/browsing Space, and development Space, a graphics-editing Space, etc. So I don't usually need to move my windows around. Unfortunately when reboot/login restores them, it puts them all in the first Space, so I have to move them, but since I reboot a handful of times a year, it's not a huge problem. I've defined Cmd-1, Cmd-2, etc. shortcuts to switch spaces like on Linux desktops, which is a lot faster the 3-finger swiping macOS comes with.
  • tester756 3y ago
    That's interesting. I do use Windows with 2 monitors and I do change placements/sizes of windows constantly - accordingly to the task
    • interpol_p 3y ago
      I’ve been using Stage Manager on macOS for this. I have groups of apps, each one in a separate “stage” that I switch between to work on different things. Out of all the desktop paradigms I’ve tried, this one is working the best for me I can constantly see the thumbnail groupings of apps that I can switch to along the left hand side of the screen. I’ve used other modes (like multiple desktops) but would often forget what spaces I had created, and ended up re-creating them without realising
  • viraptor 3y ago
    > It persists across reboots, and remembers placements separately for the two monitor arrangements You're lucky. I didn't even realise this is supposed to happen. Every day I start by moving everything to the correct screen and correct location. It's never remembered and each time windows move to a completely random spot. Things are even worse if I work from a different location for a bit. (Some windows are pseudo-minimised and I have to click the icon a few times to show them again) It's not even random/occasional. I put slack on the right third of the right display every day. It's never there after sleep or cable reconnection.
• febeling 3y ago
  Just use Rectangle app https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/
  • andybak 3y ago
    Thank you! I used to have a solution but after getting a new Mac I could never remember what it was called (a problem when an app just works and needs no interaction. You never need to know what it's called after you first install it!)
  • connordoner 3y ago
    This doesn’t actually answer the question.
    • nxpnsv 3y ago
      Still useful though!
    • dubcanada 3y ago
      No, but this is a question to Apple, can anyone even answer it? If they were an Apple employee, and it was upcoming in a new release they couldn't talk about it? The best possible outcome is you get an ex-Apple engineer who may have some background as to the thought process.
  • Joeri 3y ago
    I started with rectangle but now prefer moom. https://manytricks.com/moom/ https://manytricks.com/moom/ It integrates in the way I would expect the native feature to work: hover the green button for a snapping palette.
    • cassianoleal 3y ago
      Rectangle integrates the way I expect window snapping to work: with easy and sensible keyboard shortcuts. They keys are much easier to aim than the tiny green circle on the corner. I'm not saying moom doesn't have those, I just haven't used it and Rectangle serves my purposes perfectly well. To each their own, of course. Just trading anectodes. :)
• dubcanada 3y ago
  This does seem like a personal preference. I quite like MacOS window management, and I hate Windows window management.
  • andybak 3y ago
    Specific to snapping, you'd prefer there was no way to snap windows at all - even if it didn't affect the current behaviour?
    • dubcanada 3y ago
      I've honestly never cared enough about it, I am perfectly fine with my windows haphazardly thrown around. But I can understand that some people like it and wouldn't really care if it was added. But I certainly won't be the one to request it.
      • karmakaze 3y ago
        Same. I have Rectangle and others installed previously and very rarely use them. Double-clicking corners to expand in that direction only is good enough for me and wish Windows would do that. My layouts intentionally overlap windows with some horizontal/vertical staggering and window managers don't have shortcuts for that.
    • latexr 3y ago
      There is snapping. It’s been there for years. All you have to do is drag a window to a side or the top. While I’m not the person you asked, I would prefer if there was no window snapping at all. I wrote my own code for window management with keyboard shortcuts on macOS and dislike that it tries to be smart when I move windows with the mouse.
  • tgv 3y ago
    Me too, but that's also because Windows' version is ... weird. I drag a window up, a pop up appears showing grids where I can put my window (nice), I drop it there, and suddenly another window appears. That doesn't fit the "snap window" flow. On the mac, I use a freeware thingy (Rectangle, linked elsewhere), and I've assigned three shortcuts, and that's enough for me.
• hombre_fatal 3y ago
  It’s probably like how their Health app sucks to use directly: they figure people will solve it with apps, and people have done that. There are competing solutions available that are all pretty good. And now that there are so many solutions it might make less sense to then integrate one which will practically kill the rest. I personally use an app Divvy which let me create global hot keys for specific arrangements and moved on.
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  OSX / MacOS has always felt frustrating that way. There isn’t appreciation for making good use of desktop space. It favours littering windows of various sizes everywhere, and the Dock has always wanted to waste two rectangles of desktop on either side.
• scottydelta 3y ago
  I have been using spectacle app since a long time and I love it. It lets you define keyboard shortcuts to make it easy to size and move windows around. Here is the website https://www.spectacleapp.com/ https://www.spectacleapp.com/
  • lostlogin 3y ago
    I used to use it and it’s now not maintained. Others here have said that Rectangle duplicates a lot of the function (intentionally).
    • rxhanson 3y ago
      Rectangle is a drop-in replacement for Spectacle, and provides an option upon first install to select the Spectacle default keyboard shortcuts. Note that Spectacle only included keyboard shortcut window management, while Rectangle also includes the drag to screen edge snapping.
• valevk 3y ago
  BetterSnapTool! While at it, check out BetterTouchTool as well.
  • nxpnsv 3y ago
    Seems very similar to magnet and rectangle, are there any advantages?
• g_p 3y ago
  I think this comes down to Apple's envisaged window management paradigm being centered around full-screen windows. In Apple's UX view, it seems like you're meant to maximize windows to "spaces", and switch between workspaces using a few gestures (4 finger swipes mainly) to reveal all windows, and swap between workspaces that way. Rectangle, as others have pointed out, give you the "snap" experience you would expect from other OSs.
  • OJFord 3y ago
    Why then the two 'full-ish screen' systems? There's 'spaces' as you say, and also the traffic light button that makes it 'maximised' I suppose. I just don't see why if you'd thought it out, and that's (either of them) the you wanted people to do it, why you'd have both options. And then there's the weird 'close actually closes the window, not the app' (even though for some large percentage of apps the one window is all there ever would be).
    • rcarmo 3y ago
      Those are intended as shortcuts for creative apps where you typically need the entire screen real estate. There was precedent for that going back to pre-X macOS, but spaces and full screen windows are a consistent approach at switching contexts in creative apps.
      • D13Fd 3y ago
        The reality is that they had the green maximize buttons originally (although the exact functionality has changed a bit), then tacked on the full screen experience later. It’s not the result of some unified vision, although in practice is works fine IMO.
        • jagged-chisel 3y ago
          The green button was originally “zoom” which, to Apple, meant “adjust this window to its content, or revert to the previous size.” Some apps implemented zoom as maximize, but that was not The Apple Way®. Their full-screen-window-gets-its-own-desktop-space was added later.
• samwillis 3y ago
  Not quite answering your question directly, but I think it's important for platform owners to leave gaps for the developer ecosystem. This may be one that they have purposely left to the app market. If Apple and Microsoft provided a solution to every UX variant people want, there wouldn't be a market for apps built on top of the platform for UX tools. The further they encroach on the various markets the more developers will be discouraged from entering those markets for fear of the platform making their app redundant. Apple and Microsoft have to draw a line somewhere, sometimes they get it wrong though and piss off a load of devs. There are however obvious counter arguments to this with platform default apps such as email. But again it's important for the "average user" to have those in any new device. The platform effectively needs to do roughly 90% of what the average user wants out of the box, but then encourage users to go purchase further solutions from the various markets. Window snapping probably sits in That second area.
  • RyanHamilton 3y ago
    There's no way I believe this is the real reason. The whole history of MS/apple/facebook and successful businesses in general is allowing others to experiment to create add-ons / apps then creating your own integrated version to capture the value. i.e. let them pay the cost of experiementation and then copy it. See MS office, MS internet explorer, MS games, MS teams, Apple sherlock/watson, Facebook UI,......
  • djfdat 3y ago
    I don't think leaving gaps for third-party developers at the system level is really necessary, however, in order to not inundate users with configuration options, platform choose their level of user choice and configuration. There is some room for third-party developers, but when more is done by the system, users have to do less to get features and performance without opening up risk vectors. In some environments, you wouldn't even be able to install third-party software. I definitely think that window snapping, and other general abstract platform-level controls, should be in your first group.
    • djfdat 3y ago
      I honestly think it provides perverse incentives, especially in the Apple ecosystem, for Apple to leave their platforms barebones and apps simple. Instead of pushing their platforms and apps to provide the absolute best experience, they can spend less money on R&D and rely on third-party software, while in many cases taking a 30% cut. They've effectively outsourced and crowdsourced the R&D, while leaving the option to sherlock any feature they choose to after it's been proven successful.
• bengale 3y ago
  I assume because there are several great tools for handling this so it’s not really a priority. If and when they do add one we can look forward to the many articles about “sherlocking” though so that’ll be fun.
• victorbohr 3y ago
  I use Rectangle for this. Works like a charm. https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
  • nxpnsv 3y ago
    I use magnet^1, should I be using rectangle? ^1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12
    • interestica 3y ago
      I use bettertouchtool, should I be using magnet or rectangle?
    • rxhanson 3y ago
      I'm the developer behind Rectangle. There are a handful of features in Rectangle that aren't in Magnet, like being able to repeat shortcuts to achieve different sizes/positions, and being able to modify a lot more of the behavior of the app (there are more settings, and there are terminal commands listed on the readme of the GitHub repo). The main draw is that Rectangle is FOSS, which comes with obvious benefit. Beyond that, Rectangle Pro (paid, closed source) is where I've put a ton more features. You can find Rectangle & Rectangle Pro at https://rectangleapp.com https://rectangleapp.com
      • nxpnsv 3y ago
        Thanks - sounds totally worth checking it out!
• modeless 3y ago
  What about that interminable animation every time you fullscreen a window or switch between fullscreen windows? It should be at least twice as fast and there's not even any way to hack it to speed it up. You just have to live with it. ("reduce motion" changes it to a crossfade but doesn't make it faster) While we're at it, the Dock has always been bad. And the top menu bar was good for the original Macintosh with a tiny screen but it makes no sense on a 4k display with many different app windows showing simultaneously. MacOS has a lot of relics of the past that Apple refuses to give up. I just see it as a tax I have to pay to get to use Apple Silicon.
  • rr842j 3y ago
    I still have to meet anybody that is not at a minimum annoyed by the macos animations. I literally stopped using the spaces feature because of that!. The default animation got me dizzy all the time, but even with that one disabled via accessibility settings they keep a terribly slow fading animation. It's absolutely ridiculous for a professional machine to impose these things on you.
    • surfpel 3y ago
      Those animations are there to help people maintain a spacial understanding of their GUI. Most people are not highly technical power users who get annoyed by the small delays, this is a bias I see a lot on HN. I do agree that their accessibility options should allow for more customization of animations, though. I use ‘magnet’ for window control and it’s instant. Highly recommend. Just wish switching between desktops could be made instant too.
      • least 3y ago
        It can be... if you disable SIP. Yabai has many of these fixes that exists, even if you don't use the auto tiling features[1]. [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/wiki/Disabling-System-Integrity-Protection https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/wiki/Disabling-System-I...
    • lostlogin 3y ago
• ckolkey 3y ago
  I've been happily using yabai for years - I even wrote some custom functions in hammerspoon to send windows to new spaces, move focus, and swap windows around n/s/e/w with key-bindings. Can't imagine life without it :shrug:
• thanatos519 3y ago
  Probably for the same reason they won't support no-raise-on-focus or [sloppy-]focus-follows-mouse.
• rr842j 3y ago
  They has enough with the groundbreaking announcement on wwdc of widgets in the desktop and Chrome... Sorry, "Web apps". Maybe in 2025
• slig 3y ago
  Just use Magnet https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12
• shortformblog 3y ago
  I think Stage Manager shows their hand—that they think users should manage this with the mouse, with no window-snapping. All this said, I would like to see the full-screen mode get support for three windows, along with a way to stack vertically. There are times when you need more than two windows on a screen. I also think it’s as simple (and stupid) as Apple wanting to continue to use rounded corners and window-snapping not really making rounded corners look particularly elegant.
• 0x69420 3y ago
  ever since lion began the ipadification of macos, apple's Happy Path™ has been native full screen (even though it's an objective downgrade from the scuffed fullscreen mac apps of yore, since you have to sit through a swipe animation every time you cmd-tab) you can split this; you just have to hold down the fullscreen button, no right-click access because again, thoughtless application of touchscreen idioms as someone who uses none of the above: lining things up is painless since window bounds are slightly sticky, & macos remembers app state so it's not like you're doing manual window management every time you start up $APP. broadly equivalent in practice to a tiling wm with elaborate preset layouts & pigeonholes for specific programs. except you just drag things instead of editing a config file. couple this with all the apps i frequently use in full screen (iterm, mpv) having options for pre-lion-style instant-switch fullscreen, and i'm not hurting for lack of snapping... ever, really. fwiw there are third-party solutions for snapping if you really care, and there are even full-blown x11-style tilers
• brerchicken 3y ago
  There's a way to snap the window to one side or the other if you long press one of the resize buttons at the top. I'm a HS teacher and I often have my kids put two windows side by side. On the school-issued devices it's trivially simple, but it's honestly not that bad on a Mac. Just really unintuitive like everything else they do.
• ralfd 3y ago
  My go to example to explain the One True Mac Way of Window management is the “The many windows of John Siracusa” podcast from ATP a few years ago. The relevant discussion starts at 1:33:00 https://atp.fm/episodes/96 https://atp.fm/episodes/96 Siracusa, who grew up as a (classic) Mac user, explains his tiling and overlapping habits to Arment and Liss, who grew up as Microsoft Windows users and later switched, and they gasp in utter horror, shock and awe. For example Siracusa explains that he currently has a dozen terminal windows open, and also 19 overlapping Safari windows, normal for him, in BBEdit he regularly hits 20-40; they ask him if he doesn’t know about tabs and he replies “Oh, I love tabs! Of course every Window has many tabs!”. How would he manage/organize hundreds of tabs in multiple applications with a snapping tiling manager? He can’t. It is fun from there. Like, he jokes after a work week his desktop has “sedimentary layers”.
  • rcarmo 3y ago
    The extinction of OS 7 (platinum) roll-up windows is something many people miss.
    • tnecniv 3y ago
      Yup. For me it’s like a bookmark + a reminder.
    • rstevens333 3y ago
      [flagged]
  • ask_b123 3y ago
    I have 14 terminal and 25 browser windows open (>5000 tabs among all of them — a slightly embarrassing number). :D Edit: only 1 13' monitor too
    • neuronic 3y ago
      Is this why people complain about performance issues with browsers? I have some perpetual habit to "clean" my desktop - I get annoyed if I have >15 tabs across 2 windows which easily happens. > >5000 tabs among all of them Not to be antagonistic but ... just why? There is no chance you are actively managing and keeping track of these? Is this because it doesnt matter if they are open or not? I am genuinely baffled and confused.
• ictebres 3y ago
  I just discovered swish and it makes window management such a joy that it is unbelievable: https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/ https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/
• crazylogger 3y ago
  I think with macOS’s design of the dock (resizable, unlike on Windows where the task bar always takes up the whole monitor width,) having one or more windows “full screen” on your desktop feels wrong. There is always some some space left unoccupied to the side of the dock. Apple has a solution for this which is the green dot that puts your app in a separate space to be truly full screen, and you can split screen between two apps. I guess that’s what Apple would like you to do instead of snapping.
  • egypturnash 3y ago
    If you hide the dock it works fine to fill the screen without hitting the "full screen" button, unless there is some control at the absolute bottom of the window that you regularly need to access. Putting the dock on the side has always been an option; I've had it autohiding on the right since not long after trying 10.0.
• brianwillis 3y ago
  Hold down the option key. Hover your mouse pointer over the green zoom button in the top-left corner of the window. A "move window to the left/right side of the screen" option appears.
• Someone 3y ago
  Possibly patents. As an example that may or may not be relevant, Google surfaced https://patents.google.com/patent/US10592080B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10592080B2/en for me. It’s from “Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC” and says “This document describes techniques and apparatuses enabling assisted presentation of application windows in a multi-application environment. The multi-application environment described herein presents one or more application windows, which can be sized, positioned, or layered to provide an optimized layout. In some embodiments, these techniques and apparatuses enable a size or position of an application window to be determined based on an edge of another application window.”
• glimshe 3y ago
  Like everything Apple, it has an opinion. You either like the opinion or you don't... I feel that MacOS's UI paradigm revolves around extra large monitors and showing your screen as a sort of desk. A lot of wasted/empty space where you arrange things freely, as opposed to Windows/Linux which emphasize efficiency in using the screen real estate. I use MacOS daily at work but I would LOVE if I could use Windows instead, that's what I have on my personal machine. It looks like the OP simply wants to use Microsoft and can't admit it to themselves!
• rcarmo 3y ago
  Here’s my list of window management tools for Mac (and beyond): https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers https://taoofmac.com/space/apps/window_managers
• Aaargh20318 3y ago
  I think the Apple Vision Pro is a good example of why snapping makes no sense. In this environment, your screen is basically the entire world around you, it can be as big as you want. Would you want to divide this into neat rectangles filling your entire view ? If your screen is that large, you basically size your windows to fit the content and then arrange them spatially into something that makes sense to you. The desktop isn’t that different, but it’s limited by the size of your screen. This urge to divide the entirety of your screen up into rectangles with zero breathing room between them is not because that’s the most natural way of organizing your windows, it’s a way to deal with lack of space. Say you’re organizing your mail on your physical desk. You’re making different stacks. Bills, taxes, junkmail, etc. Are you going to put these stacks right next to each other ? No, you’re going to leave some room between them. In fact, it would be really annoying if you had so many different stacks of papers on your desk that you had to put them next to each other filling the entire surface. It would feel way more chaotic. In my opinion, tools like a maximize button and window snapping are trying to solve the wrong problem. You’re trying to maximize usage of the space you have, because you have too little. The real solution is to get more space, i.e. get a larger monitor. You don’t need window snapping or anything like that if your monitor is big enough, and you can just size your windows to fit the size of their content and place them wherever. In fact, on a large monitor window snapping makes zero sense.
  • D13Fd 3y ago
    We’re talking about the desktop OS, not Apple Vision Pro, which isn’t even out yet. Snapping makes lots of sense for a 2d desktop OS.
    • Aaargh20318 3y ago
      Only if your monitor is too small. Snapping makes no sense on my 5k2k ultrawide, for example.
      • D13Fd 3y ago
        That’s when you need it the most, so you can tile apps quickly.
• djfdat 3y ago
  From my relatively short experience but ongoing with Mac, MacOS lacks a lot of features that Windows has. It has many inferior options that people just accept. Some people find third party software or modifying plists to bend the operating system to their will. As much as I hate many many many design choices in Apple's ecosystems, I adjust where I can and move on.
  • D13Fd 3y ago
    Like what? I use both every day, hard to think of any major features for my usage other than snapping that Mac OS lacks.
    • djfdat 3y ago
      - Peek at desktop - Quick hide-all-windows to copy something from your desktop to your clipboard, then bring everything back - Alt-tab, especially when it comes to apps with multiple windows, and windows in different states, such as minimized - A modern/fully-featured default web browser without a locked down extension ecosystem. - A start menu for seeing all your applications - A taskbar with application grouping - File Explorer is much more full-featured than Finder - Better settings, especially when it comes to relevant settings being in one place - The concept of uninstalling an application vs just deleting the application - In some cases, an actual function key row That said, I've used Windows for almost 15 years now, and I think many of its choices are second nature to me. Many of my friends are masters of switching windows with Expose, which I absolutely despise. And I still use Windows for work, but use Mac in personal usage. I usually end up frustrated at things that work on Windows but don't on MacOS, but rarely vice versa.
      • jitl 3y ago
        Desktop peek: Part of “Mission Control”: spread thumb and 3 fingers, or press Fn+F11. Alt tab: press cmd-tab to cycle applications, then cmd-` to cycle windows of that application. This typically has better number-of-keypress to get the window you want compared to Windows alt-tab which requires iterating over all windows in the worst case. Browser: Safari is fits your criteria Start menu to see all apps: this is called “Launchpad”, and is in the Dock by default for new macOS users, but can be removed. Uninstall vs delete: apps installed from the Mac App Store can be uninstalled from launchpad. Otherwise, isn’t “apps are files, drag to install, cmd-delete or drag to trash to uninstall” objectively simpler than using a wizard to install, and digging around in a control panel to uninstall? Function key row: you can swap the behavior of the fn row so that the keys send Fn1-Fn12 by default, and needs the fn key held down to send commands like “volume up”. Settings layout: this one is opinion; I’ve always found Windows settings horribly organized. From 2001-2007, there’s no contest that System Preferences is better organized than Windows XP’s control panel. From 2007-2015, the Vista-era control panel split things awkwardly between the “new style” Vista panels and old-style windows XP/2000/98 panels. Since Windows 10 things are on more even footing in my view, although some details in macOS Network and Displays are annoyingly hidden in some versions.
• AndrewSwift 3y ago
  Mac user since 1987, Lisa user before. Mac windows do snap together when they're close to each other or the edge of the screen. You can option double-click any corner to make the window fill the screen without going into fullscreen mode. You can double-click any edge or corner to make it expand to the edge. Hold down option and mouse over the green traffic light, and you get the option to fill the left or right half of the screen. The main issues for me are: 1. changing monitor configurations destroys my arrangement 2. the menu bar, on large screens, is too far away — it needs to be closer to where I'm actively working
  • daniealapt 3y ago
    Wow, learnt something new! — Already a massive improvement over using the + icon.
  • rifty 3y ago
    Maybe you already know about these, they aren't free, but they do address your issues. For number 1 there is: https://funk-isoft.com/display-maid.html https://funk-isoft.com/display-maid.html or https://rectangleapp.com/pro https://rectangleapp.com/pro For number 2 there is: https://manytricks.com/menuwhere/ https://manytricks.com/menuwhere/ I think both should in some form be supported natively though. My reasoning for the second is that many apps are now using command palette search overlays when technically 'command + shift + ?' or even somewhat 'Move focus to menu bar' system option already does that. But because of large screens it should just pop over the focused window and unify this experience across all apps.
    • eproxus 3y ago
      For number 2 I use Raycast with the shortcut ⌘⇧P bound to the built-in extension Navigation → Search Menu Items. This gives you a command palette in any application (you can exclude apps that have their own built-in version if you want).
• voisin 3y ago
  It’s shocking that you can’t tell MacOS which monitor to keep the app tray on (or to simply show it on all monitors), and that it constantly moves!
  • lesserknowndan 3y ago
    Yes you can. In the Settings, Display, Arrange Monitors you drag the menu bar to the screen you want to have the dock.
    • voisin 3y ago
      That’s for the menu bar. I am talking about the dock. It goes to whichever screen you are on as soon as your cursor is at the bottom. So when you have a large screen up top and a smaller laptop below, as you move the mouse from big down to small, you often hit the “bottom” of the big and the dock reverts to the top screen. You cannot make it stay on one screen or show on both.
      • lesserknowndan 3y ago
        Ah yes, I realised that was what you meant after I posted. Though, in fact, it doesn’t really affect the menu bar at all. Rather, it determines where your desktop icons will live; and it is probably used to determine the default desktop the dock is on when you do a cold boot - must test that. Like you imply, I’d very much prefer it if you could drag the dock to a specific display and have an option to prevent the moving behaviour you mention. Would also be nice to be able to drag some icons to one of the Arrange Displays screens to indicate where you want your icons to live.
• sys_64738 3y ago
  It might be patented. You have to understand that a GUI design can only proceed with blessing from the legal dept in a company with assets that can be seized.
• sys_64738 3y ago
  Windows also struggles with moving windows between a 4K laptop and a 1080p display. The window chugs to reshape into the display resolution but the most bizarre is moving a window to 1080p then clicking maximize but it just to the 4K display in max resolution. I mean WTF is that? How the heck do you easily move the window between different resolutions with it doing the "right" thing, not the stupid thing?
• the-printer 3y ago
  Productivity-wise, Stage Manager is a step in the right direction in my opinion. I don't think that the macOS desktop environment needs a snapping/tiling window manager. Conceptually however, the best third-party window manager is spoonfish. But Rectangle suffices for certain tasks. https://github.com/jcs/spoonfish https://github.com/jcs/spoonfish
• rado 3y ago
  It does have snapping?
• johnwheeler 3y ago
  I don’t understand. I wouldn’t consider snapping a first class feature like closing, maximizing, and minimizing. It’s possible that the addition of snapping would confuse some uninitiated users. They wouldn’t understand why the windows lock toward the side of the screen when they drag. The only beef I have with apples windowing system is you can’t remove the finder from alt-tab. There are apps like witch but it is currently broken with IntelliJ tools. It doesn’t allow switch window focus to auto save. I have written the developers about this. They probably are reading this now. Fix it.
  • WWLink 3y ago
    I'm agreeing but it's because I find features like window snapping, auto-reveal desktop, and AERO SHAKE (where all the windows except the one you're shaking get minimized) REALLY FUCKING ANNOYING. Windows 11 maximized the annoying desire to do things for me by bringing up this stupid rectangle at the top of my screen any time I move a window, trying to get me to snap it to a side of the screen... It's like MS hired someone who uses those obnoxious Linux tiling WMs that don't let you do anything except tiling, and that person is trying to force tiling on everyone. Thing is, damnit, I like overlapping windows!
    • deafpolygon 3y ago
      > Windows 11 maximized the annoying desire to do things for me by bringing up this stupid rectangle at the top of my screen any time I move a window, trying to get me to snap it to a side of the screen... This can be turned off. Go to Settings (Win+I).. click through System then Multitasking. Expand the "Snap windows" dropdown (arrow at right side). The option you want to turn off is "Show snap layouts when I drag a window to the top of my screen". I'm about to turn it off as well. I rarely use it, now that I think of it- and it's too touchy. While you're there, you can turn off the title bar shake (I have that turned off as well).
• j45 3y ago
  Might be a patent
• throwingrocks 3y ago
  Seems like you assume everyone likes window snapping because you do. It’s one of the most annoying aspects of using Windows for me.
  • Peanuts99 3y ago
    Seems like it would be good to have as an option though, some people clearly appreciate it and some don't.
  • mvdtnz 3y ago
    Huh? What's annoying about something completely optional? If you don't like window snapping, just.... don't?
    • xdennis 3y ago
      Apple people are always like this. They always find justifications for their company. If you ask an Apple guy why does the mouse have the charge port on the bottom, making it unusable when charging, he'll say Tim Apple has perfectly engineered the mouse to optimize for the right amount of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.
    • prewett 3y ago
      I hate the Window's half-window snapping, because I don't want tiled windows, but in order to have the window at the edge or top of the screen (which doesn't seem like a huge ask) I have to get it just close enough so it doesn't resize on me, and about half the time I go to far and have to start over. I don't have or want a really wide monitor, so Visual Studio being half the width of my monitor is not a useful size, because it is too narrow.
      • deafpolygon 3y ago
        Win+I, System -> Multitasking Expand "Snap windows" (down arrow on right side) Turn off "When I drag a window, let me snap it without dragging it all the way to the screen edge" if you're finding it to be too sensitive.
• devilkin 3y ago
  For the same reason they refuse to implement displayer multistream. And a gazillion other industry standards: because they can, and they feel that their way is the right way.
  • pinkcan 3y ago
    don't patents expire after 20 years? I'd assume some of those should be older by now, leaving me to think the reason lies somewhere else.
• hartator 3y ago
  I use Magnet which is sweet. https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
  • pbronez 3y ago
    Ooooo good tip, thanks! This might be a good replacement for Divvy [0], which I used until it EoL’d [0] https://mizage.com/divvy/ https://mizage.com/divvy/
    • interblag 3y ago
      Really miss Divvy (RIP). At the risk of causing a good thread on Apple's weird inability to lauch a really valuable OS feature devolve into a list of workarounds, Hammerspoon (a generic automation tool) plus this script (https://gist.github.com/artburkart/15b62f1a741eef0f74492860ab9dee9d https://gist.github.com/artburkart/15b62f1a741eef0f74492860a...) offer a really good equivalent, with the added ability to change hotkeys, extend behaviour, modify behaviour, etc. since it's just a script. I was devastated for a brief while when Divvy (and then ShiftIt) stopped working, but haven't looked back for a while.
  • guitarbill 3y ago
    Also Rectangle, which I moved to from Divvy: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
    • SamuelAdams 3y ago
      I use this too, but y’all are missing the point. I should not need third party tools like Rectangle and Mos to manage applications for an OS. I’d much rather have this functionality built in than have a dozen new emojis every year.
      • guitarbill 3y ago
        Why not? I dislike the Windows snapping behaviour for halves. Most macOS casual users won't need it. These apps work great and allow a lot of customisability that an OS-level snap might not provide. I'm but sure having it built in would be all upshots.
• sgt 3y ago
  It may be basic, but what about the double clicking on sides of windows to make it expand, and double clicking on edges? Does does that not qualify as snapping?
  • goosedragons 3y ago
    No. What people want is a clone of the "Windows Snap" feature Microsoft introduced with Windows 7 where you drag a window right or left take up half the screen.
    • sgt 3y ago
      Oh okay. Personally I wouldn't want that. I would like to organize my computer's desktop the way I would organize physical stuff on my desk, just freeform style.
      • activiation 3y ago
        Probably because you never tried it... Personally I like it when it can snap to 1/4 or 1/2 of the screen... On a 30in monitor
• based2 3y ago
  https://patents.google.com/patent/US6661436B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6661436B2/en Method for providing window snap control for a split screen computer program GUI https://patents.justia.com/patent/6661436 https://patents.justia.com/patent/6661436 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250201392 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250201392 https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/07/gnome-shell-quarter-tiling-extension-wintile https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/07/gnome-shell-quarter-tili...
  • toxicFork 3y ago
    Another reason for "patents are awful"
  • mvdtnz 3y ago
    Patents can be licensed.
    • hackernewds 3y ago
      Yet HN biases to Apple = good, Google = evil
  • bluejekyll 3y ago
    IANAL, but, “Status: Expired - Lifetime”
    • piskov 3y ago
      2022-04-19 Adjusted expiration
  • malwrar 3y ago
    Hmm that patent appears to have expired. If it was the reason this feature hasn't been implemented, looks like they're in the clear to do so now.
  • rhaway84773 3y ago
    So an expired patent which was previously owned by IBM is why Apple cannot have windows tiling but Windows and Linux have had for decades?
• marssaxman 3y ago
  What is "window snapping"? It is hard for me to imagine what you could mean by "nonexistent window managing system". Obviously Mac OS has a window management system. People have widely varying preferences when it comes to such things. You seem to be thinking of yours as though they are somehow objective and external to you.
• altairprime 3y ago
  Some form of ‘snap’ is being rolled out with Stage Manager on the iPad, which has very strong window rails, and the latest update improves their granularity. macOS has very few snap rails relative to the iPad, and only very limited close-range springs when in proximity to other windows. Perhaps that’ll change, or perhaps not, in the future. So, Apple’s definitely not ignoring snapping — they’re just doing it in ways that don’t currently meet your needs.
• jsf01 3y ago
  Although it would be nice for this to be built into the OS, there are lots of apps that fulfill this purpose. I personally use Moom, have heard good things about Magnet, and if you like tiling there’s Yabai.
• coolspot 3y ago
  Same reason why Mac mouse doesn’t have right click and why ~double-click~ [edit: pressing “return”] on a folder is renaming, and why window controls are on a left side of a window and do things unlike MS Windows (not closing, not minimizing, not maximizing). Patents.
  • karlshea 3y ago
    > double-click on a folder is renaming Uhh... not on my Mac? Hitting Return is rename, is that what you meant?
    • coolspot 3y ago
      Ah, yes.
  • kristiandupont 3y ago
    Is "F2 for rename" patented?
  • Aaron2222 3y ago
    > Mac mouse doesn’t have right click This hasn't been true for over a decade. The Magic Mouse supports right-click (and the Magic Trackpad supports two-finger or bottom-right corner to right-click). Not sure if it's the default or not though.
    • coolspot 3y ago
      Magic mouse has one physical clicker. To imitate “right click” you have to lift fingers from the left side and click. They can’t make a mouse with two physical clickers.
  • mhw 3y ago
    > window controls are on a left side of a window Simpler explanation: Mac OS’s first release preceded Windows so they had to pick a side for themselves when first designing the system. See https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/classic-mac-os https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/classic-mac-os - the square on the left side of the front-most window’s title bar is the close button.
• lloeki 3y ago
  Well, because it has? Hover over the green stoplight, you get a popover with fullscreen options. Press Option and the fullscreen options mutate into snap left/snap right/zoom. These can also be found in the Window menu. Again, press option to mutate the fullscreen ones to snap. And since these are menu options, one can set any keyboard shortcut of their choosing through the keyboard shortcut prefpane+. So it is not "snapping" in the sense that you drag the window to the left or right side of the screen, and I would 200% agree that it is completely non-obvious to discover, but it is there for any one to peruse without any third party tool. + See here for how to achieve that, section "Tiling and snapping" (along with more things to make first party things more sane for a certain crowd) https://lna7n.org/2021/04/16/a-survival-guide-to-macos-from-linux.html https://lna7n.org/2021/04/16/a-survival-guide-to-macos-from-...
  • gamegoblin 3y ago
    I've used a mac for 10 years now, and TIL The Windows snapping UI is much more intuitive, though.
    • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      But also annoying when you're trying to tile some (of a bunch) of windows at full height. Yes, there are ways to do it without unintentionally maximizing, but it takes more attention to detail.
      • ethbr0 3y ago
        Is there any way to static tile in Windows without an external application? I.e. pre-configure a tiling layout of application windows, that will be restored as specified (or at least on boot)
        • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
          Revert back to Vista or whatever version of Windows had an active desktop and embed applications in the HTML file used as the active desktop? Beats the heck out of me.
• porphyra 3y ago
  I really wish there was an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS. Yes, I'm aware of Yabai and others, but it's still not quite the same. Tiling apps bolted onto macOS's floating windows still feel sluggish, window decorations take up lots of space and are easy to accidentally click on (ruining the tiling), animations are annoying, focus doesn't follow mouse, keyboard shortcuts sometimes conflict, and so on.
  • sxg 3y ago
    I’m sure you’ve heard of Amethyst, but it does address at least a few of your concerns. Particularly focus following the mouse and conflicting shortcuts.
• baryphonic 3y ago
  I use Hammerspoon with the ShiftIt plugin ("spoon") Works quite well, and is configured w/ Lua
• franczesko 3y ago
  Why window buttons are on the top -left, that is the question?
  • pinkcan 3y ago
    Where should they be, and why?
    • xdennis 3y ago
      On the right, because that's where most people are accustomed to find them. But they weirdest thing is that the buttons are colored instead of having meaningful icons.
      • thebitstick 3y ago
        Unless you're accustomed to them being on the left, in which being on the right is the weird thing. Red means stop, yellow means slow/yield, green means go, which in the context of window management doesn't make sense, but if you think about it differently, a good 40% of it makes sense. Red means stop existing, yellow means yield to other windows, and green means... go big?
      • pinkcan 3y ago
        you're right colors may be confusing if the user is color blind, I guess that's why the close is always the one on the left, the minimize is always the one on the middle, and the expand + extras is always the one on the right, so user can find what they want where their more accustomed to
• simonbarker87 3y ago
  I think this is more about the ethos of the Mac. Unix (which is the underpinnings of Mac) was all about lots of small tools that build together to make something great, and if the base OS doesn’t have what you want then that’s a great third party (or DIY) opportunity. This bleeds over to the Mac in my opinion. I don’t want Apple to make everything, I want them to provide hooks and APIs that allow other people to make things to give me more choices as a user. I don’t want big monolith applications (like Outlook), I want small applications that do one thing well. So when people say “why doesn’t Apple do X?” And I see a dozen third party implementations I think “because they don’t need to” and that’s perfect in my mind.
  • CharlesW 3y ago
    As you note, there are many great window management solutions for macOS. I'm also very satisfied that Finder's basic window management features are complemented by a healthy choice of free and paid power-user solutions. Rectangle (rectangleapp.com) is a good choice that also does snapping. I'm happy with Raycast (raycast.com), which offers window management with an extension (https://www.raycast.com/extensions/window-management https://www.raycast.com/extensions/window-management).
  • seanp2k2 3y ago
    MacOS is very far from Unix ideology at this point. It’s not even possible anymore to install things you compile without a bunch of red tape scary warnings. You can’t make new folders in /. iOS has tons of private APIs that only Apple gets to use to make their apps and services the only viable choice, eg iCloud can upload photos in the background but Google Photos times out, even the location sharing hack doesn’t fix this. Apple doesn’t do it because it’s only a small percentage of users who even know what it is to want it, and they’re already well-served by third party tools. Look at how long it took for widgets to come to iOS. Apple isn’t usually the first mover when it comes to software stuff like this, they like to sit back and let other devs solve problems then see how it plays in the market first before launching a better-integrated version themselves (sometimes in a way that only they can do because again private APIs) with only the basic features included.
    • 3y ago
• alehlopeh 3y ago
  Can an Ask HN self-post be clickbait? Apple isn’t refusing to do anything. They just haven’t done some minor thing that you personally would like. The fact that you’re “shocked” by something as banal as “lack of window snapping” is kind of funny actually.
  • vosper 3y ago
    Ask / Tell HNs definitely can be click/engagement bait, and this probably is.
    • rchaud 3y ago
      Engagement bait doesn't serve any purpose on HN. On other social media it's necessary to send a relevance signal to the algorithm. You don't win any prizes for posting a lot on HN.
      • vosper 3y ago
        Do you not get HN points if the post is heavily upvoted? Individuals with high point counts are perceived as being influential (are, in fact, influential) which has value. Note I'm not claiming the person who posted this Ask HN is trying to build points in order to sell influence. But it's a thing that happens all across the internet.
        • rchaud 3y ago
          It happens elsewhere on the internet because other sites encourage the concept of "following". My HN karma trounces that of the topic poster, and I can assure you no one considers me to be influential on this site.
  • sebzim4500 3y ago
    For what it's worth, when I have to use mac os I am shocked by the lack of basic window management functionality, so I can believe that OP is too. By shocked I mean that I literally don't understand how Apple has produced something so terrible, when their hardware (and most of rest of the software) is so good.
• jrm4 3y ago
  More importantly: Why have users collectively mostly forgotten that software is something you can change? If I sound like a smug Linux user here, damn right. This is a stupid way to do operating systems.
• web3-is-a-scam 3y ago
  I just installed Rectangle and forgot about it, never had a single problem with it.
• mrinfinite 3y ago
  Spectacle.app snaps
  • wildrhythms 3y ago
    Spectacle is no longer maintained, per their website, and has been replaced by Rectangle: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
• alphanullmeric 3y ago
  It’s unfortunate that non-Linux desktop environments don’t have a nice keyboard autotiler like Pop Shell. Amethyst and MacOS in general feel so unintuitive and needlessly complex/feature lacking that I’m surprised it has captured the kind of audience that Apple is known for having.
• eptcyka 3y ago
  UX when snapping to the right of the screen will suffer because the toolbar will forever be stuck to the top left of the screen. As such, I don’t believe this is a well optimised use case and might be why Apple doesn’t want to “emphasise” this particular use case.
• mr-ron 3y ago
  Shoutout to SizeUp the first app I install on any MacOs computer I work on
• KlayLay 3y ago
  Personally, I use Swish for this [1], but the reason is probably because of the intended audience. Window snapping requires you to organize your windows yourself, which is something they clearly don't want you to do. That's why Mission Control, App Exposé, Stage Manager, and (arguably) Launchpad exist—they organize your windows for you. [1]: https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/ https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/
• mixmastamyk 3y ago
  I always turn off most snapping. Why? Because I have my preferred layout already, and have good dexterity to move things. When I drag a title bar to the top center, as I have for decades, it tries to maximize the window. I never want that, and have double-click titlebar (that’s more efficient) if I do. There’s also a weird state machine between snap to size and normal mode I never completely understood. Believe the thinking is that it should work the same as max/restore but I don’t want three modes to keep track of. If I do snap the size/position that’s what I want, and would never want it to go back to the old place, aka restore. I think KDE has some useful subset that can be configured. The edge snapping is not bad, and the ones that require a modifier key. These are implementation concerns however. The basic idea is good but I haven’t seen it done right by default yet.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• lachlan_gray 3y ago
  Raycast does this really well, among other things
• fsckboy 3y ago
  tangential question: is there some sort of add-on tool-let that would duplicate the File-Edit-*-Windows-Help menu down onto the top of an app's window? Even if it only worked when that window had focus would be good enough for me. I hate going to the top of the screen, only to discover the wrong app has focus are there a family of little doo-dads like this, and what is the category called? also, aside, pet peeve: why is New Window always in the File menu, and never in the Window menu, from time immemorial?
• SebastianKra 3y ago
  I always feel like Apple must have some grand 1000IQ concept for window management and I just don't get it. Stage Manager, Spaces, Mission Control, Expose, Window Zooming, Hiding, Minimizing (which is different from Hiding), Fullscreen/Splitscreen... yet the first thing I do is install a third-party window manager. I tried for months to go vanilla and get my head around the features. But why, why do fullscreen windows create their own space when I want them to exist within a space? Why can't I briefly bring up Finder on top of my fullscreen window? Why are there lengthy animations to switch between spaces? Why do CMD+Tab and CMD+` have a million special rules for which windows they select? Why is there no way perfectly position more than two apps next to each other? Why are apps in splitscreen married to each other? Why can't I easily swap one of them? Why are some window operations keyboard-exclusive, while others can only be performed with the mouse? There has got to be a perfect workflow where all this makes sense. Otherwise, they wouldn't build it like that? Right?
  • taejavu 3y ago
    The alternative explanation seems to be that they know it’s far from perfect, but lack the appetite to rethink from first principles. So they come up with some feature that will help some specific scenario, and just pile that onto the stack of shit.
    • DimmieMan 3y ago
      I think they’re too afraid of ‘removing the spacebar heater’(https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/). You go look at early Mac OS X and it’s strikingly similar, it’s well and truly reached a point where they need a shakeup but are scared of the short term pain in breaking user workflows.
  • capr 3y ago
    why do Apple users give so much benefit of the doubt to these people despite all evidence?
    • SebastianKra 3y ago
• diebeforei485 3y ago
  It's some patent thing.
• dangus 3y ago
  brew install rectangle
• dcsan 3y ago
  Raycast has some nice keyboard shortcuts for window layout.
• asylteltine 3y ago
  1)Because no one would care 2) there are applications which can add this 3) Mission Control is their preferred way to handle windows
• tambourine_man 3y ago
  This appears every now and then on HN. Window management in macOS is superficially similar but profoundly different from Windows or most Linux DEs. It's got a fixed menu bar which windows are independent from. That alone already changes a lot and has deep implications. My advice is to learn how and why it's different instead of trying to make it behave as something it's not. Waiting for Apple to turn it into a chimera would be even worse, IMO.
  • nine_k 3y ago
    Different enough, fine! Would you please kindly provide a reference to a guide explaining the right way to operate macOS windows, preferably with some explanation of the concepts behind it. and the advantages it offers over the established practices known from elsewhere? E.g. vi navigation is pretty different from Notepad's, but it's relatively easy to make a case when it shows certain advantages. What are the superpowers of the standard macOS WM?
    • tambourine_man 3y ago
      I’m an orphan of the spatial Finder, to be honest. macOS got features from NeXT and some of its own, but it lost cohesion. Though I’m not entirely sure how it would fit with the terabytes and Spotlight of today. Off the top of my head: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/amp/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/amp/ The after show of this podcast: https://atp.fm/96 https://atp.fm/96
    • HDThoreaun 3y ago
      The current iteration of macOS was designed to make heavy use of spaces and Fullscreen apps. Notepad/finder/settings haphazard on a desktop space or 2 and everything else fullscreen and use the trackpad gestures to switch between them. That's how the designers want you to use macOS. If you prefer windows style tiling you can get one of the third party window managers.
• talkingtab 3y ago
  Compared to Linux (Debian and Ubuntu) Apple's implementation is dysfunctional. Snapping and unsnapping is an important tool I now expect from any modern OS.
• sergiotapia 3y ago
  For those that want this for Mac, use this app called Rectangle. It's a MUST HAVE. https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/
• rhinoceraptor 3y ago
  MacOS has a very functional and intuitive window managing system. You use the mouse and resize windows and arrange them to your liking to suit your workflow and minimize wasted space.
• superasn 3y ago
  Can anyone also tell me how to get the dock on all my 4 monitors together? The best I can do is get it on the bottom 2 monitors using the mouse hover features. But is there a way to get it to show on all 4 monitors all the time? If it could show the open windows on each monitor (like windows taskbar) that would be even more amazing! Please this has been bugging me for so long and any help is appreciated. P.S. There is a software called ubar but that only works for bottom 2 monitors :/
  • kitsunesoba 3y ago
    I believe probably the issue with this is that there are only a tiny handful of devs with 3+ monitors hooked up who could develop a dock/taskbar with such features and test that it works as intended.
    • superasn 3y ago
      I think you're right but almost every other operating system natively supports it including Windows 10 and Linux mint.
• shipscode 3y ago
  Just use Yabai
• Havoc 3y ago
  They're still working on a catchy name for it so they can't release it yet. I'm told "Snap Pro" is current front runner
• winrid 3y ago
  I remember when I brought a Windows laptop (it was my personal dev machine at the time) to an Apple interview, and the interviewee saw me organize my windows in a couple seconds to the sides and he was like "whoa, windows is neat". "oh, uh. Yeah." :)
• syntaxing 3y ago
  I don’t think I can use macOS without rectangle.
• torstenvl 3y ago
  This is easily solved by Magnet or Rectangle.
• jimmywatersabc 3y ago
  By "add" I assume you mean pre-install or include before it reaches me. I think pre-installed stuff is a slippery slope with bloatware on one end of the spectrum, and a bare bones alpine version on the other end. I don't mind installing stuff. My preference is minimalism. I prefer to have 3+ independent apps to choose from where possible.
• chasing 3y ago
  Mosiac. Works great: https://lightpillar.com/mosaic.html https://lightpillar.com/mosaic.html
• olalonde 3y ago
  Doesn't really answer your question but in case you didn't know, BetterTouchTool is a third party app that solves this problem.
• craniumslows 3y ago
  I use an app called Cinch but there are a few third party apps that do it. I wish I could run GNOME on my macOS
• sleepybrett 3y ago
  When I was annoyed with this I went ahead and downloaded phoenix (https://github.com/kasper/phoenix https://github.com/kasper/phoenix) wrote a little javascript and now I have a bunch of globally accessable hotkeys so I can lay my windows out in a number of combinations. Right now I have setups for over/under left/right, two by two grid, and three by three grid. I've got some plans to spend some time enabling more arbitrary grids and subgrids but I haven't gotten to it yet.
• chiefgeek 3y ago
  I find this utility very useful for working with windows on the Mac. https://www.lightpillar.com/mosaic.html https://www.lightpillar.com/mosaic.html
• hk1337 3y ago
  I’ve been using a Mac for ~20 years, I like it not snapping. The window goes where I want it go.
• acjacobson 3y ago
  There are a few other recommendations for a non-native option - but my preferred one is Raycast. You get a launcher that does 100 other things plus hot key management of windows.
• NayamAmarshe 3y ago
  As with anything, there's always a third party app to fix what the trillion dollar companies can't.
• tombarys 3y ago
  Even this is not answer to your question (others did it well), I love this hack for simple moving windows by clicking anywhere: https://mmazzarolo.com/blog/2022-04-16-drag-window-by-clicking-anywhere-on-macos/ https://mmazzarolo.com/blog/2022-04-16-drag-window-by-clicki...
• villgax 3y ago
  Rectangle works just fine just a matter of time before getting sherlocked into macOS {mountain_range}
• jsmith12673 3y ago
  Try BetterSnapTool. As others have mentioned, this feature is patended. `BetterSnapTool` is $3 is for a lifetime license and does what you'd expect coming from XFCE/windows etc.
• highmastdon 3y ago
  I’m still sad about the spaces grid that’s been removed in recent versions from macOS. Som 15 years ago when I started using a MacBook unibody 13” there were grid like spaces. I usually had a 3-by-3 grid. IDE in the center, left a browser window for docs, right a browser window for preview of what I was building, bottom terminal, bottom right spotify, top right socials, and some leftovers on top and bottom left. Every app had it’s own designated space. Now, I’m using 9 spaces, lineair unfortunately. But I’m using yabai with shkd as window manager and Alt-tab to switch between recent windows (as that’s apparently broken by design in macOS). I’ve configured so called “modes” for create a vim-command-like way of commanding windows and focus around. Eg hyper+m goes into _m_ove mode, from there I can press 1-9 to move a window to a specific space, or shift+1-9 to move and follow, or (shift+)q to move (and follow) a window to the latest focused space. (Hyper+q in “normal” mode moves me back and forth between recent spaces.) I’ve got jump mode to go to an application by shortcut, and some app specific modes to bind key successions to shortcuts. Oh, not trivial, hyper+enter gives me iTerm at any space The nice thing about yabai with SIP disabled is that it’s snapping without _any_ delay, which is great when working with many windows.
• ankurdhama 3y ago
  I don't think Apple ever incorporated any feedback from their users. They have the culture of "our research based on user focus group found what's best for you".
• ericzawo 3y ago
  This is the first thing I install on any new Apple laptop. It Just Works™ https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/
• pxc 3y ago
  Does macOS have any tools for searching (fuzzy filtering) through open windows¹ these days? I'm recently switching to Mac at work, and the last time I was in it one of the things I missed the most was that feature. I'm also hoping commenters on this post will be writing about their favorite hacks for emulating tiling WMs on macOS. -- 1: Example, basically exactly the feature I want: https://youtu.be/urqkaWo5geQ https://youtu.be/urqkaWo5geQ
• commercialdrop 3y ago
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• wappieslurkz 3y ago
  Gary from the YouTube channel MacMost made some amazing eye opening guides regarding window management, like this one: https://youtu.be/T9uGNidrTyM https://youtu.be/T9uGNidrTyM
• donfotto 3y ago
  So sad that we need 3rd party apps for even the most basic functionality in mac os. It used to be that linux was a hassle to set up, and mac os worked out of the box. Now it's quite the opposite. Similar thing with using an external 4k monitor. By default it's blurry (looks like 720p, awful), and one needs a 3rd party app (BetterDisplay) just to get a decent image. I had this issue with several macs and displays and cables. Terrible user experience. Obviously works out of the box with ubuntu, debian, and windows.
  • donfotto 3y ago
    I wish it was easy & reliable to run ubuntu on an M2 macbook. That would be perfect - ubuntu is a much more capable & convenient OS at this point, but nothing comes close to the macbook in terms of hardware.
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• vapemaster 3y ago
  long time windows user that switched to mac due to Apple Silicon dominance on the laptop experience. This, 1000x this. It's utterly bizarre that the window management paradigm is "let 'em all stack up and make it easy to spread 'em all out" At first I thought I didn't get the paradigm. Now I get that I don't get the idea behind the paradigm. Rectangle (pro version) fixes some of this and adds some really cool features. And because of the Apple app hegemony, it does work nearly OS level good. But why, oh why does this have to be 3rd party? It's like some any UX pattern baked in since Lisa?
• IndexPointer 3y ago
  I strongly recommend installing Spectacle for Mac, which does window snapping with a hotkey. Apparently it's no longer maintained but works perfectly fine right now, and there are alternatives i haven't tried, like Rectangle.
• vGPU 3y ago
  Window snapping is patented by Microsoft. https://patents.google.com/patent/US10592080B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10592080B2/en MS and apple have agreements to share patents though, so I don’t know why they couldn’t implement this.