Window tiling! If you drag a single window to the top does it maximize, and unmaximize when you drag it away? That's been my most wanted feature in macOS since forever (yes I have tried the third party ones).
I don't really care about tiling multiple windows, but I've always hated the macOS full screen behavior, and before that the old green button behavior, so an alternative that finally works well (the way Windows has for many years) would be amazing.
Hm, I've been really happy with Rectangle (https://rectangleapp.com) and its shortcuts have become second nature to me, but if the native version is equally keyboard friendly I might give it a go.
(btw, have you tried Rectangle and if so - what didn't you like?)
Genuine q: is cmd–backspace too much? I’m in general pretty satisfied with the Finder keyboard navigation/editing. Especially with “enter” for rename, copy/paste/cut/move and deletion too…
I never understood the enter for rename shortcut. People open (or "execute", which is the general understanding of the action for the "enter" key) files far more than they rename them.
It makes sense if one considers the angle of how single-key shortcuts are much more disaster-prone.
For example, if the user has a large number of files selected and accidentally triggers the open shortcut by hitting enter, their computer is going to be stuck spinning its wheels for a while (the more files involved and the heavier the applications they open in, the worse it'll be) unless they force restart. Involving a modifier key filters for intention pretty well, and so while this scenario is possible with ⌘O, it's far less likely.
Most Mac shortcuts seem to follow this, with those that are single-key by default doing relatively harmless and easily reversible things.
> It makes sense if one considers the angle of how single-key shortcuts are much more disaster-prone.
> ...
> Most Mac shortcuts seem to follow this, with those that are single-key by default doing relatively harmless and easily reversible things.
The enter-to-rename behavior has been in Mac OS since near the beginning, when versions were just named something like "System N.M").
IIRC, I've heard they had very detailed UI design documents back then, that explained their choices (e.g. I've heard they explained the reason for the menu bar being at the top of the screen rather than the top of a window was the cursor will just stop there, requiring less mousing precision).
So if that's the case, there should be documents confirming or denying your speculation.
The Mac didn’t have a CLI in the first 16 years or so, so there’s no traditional “execute” meaning for the Enter key. I’d argue that the thought here was that by pressing that key, you’d want to enter a new name for the selected file.
That's not a bad thought, but traditiona Mac keyboards didn't even have an "enter" key. (And nor do their current tenkeyless ones.) They just had a "return" key. The "enter" key only came around when the 10-key numpad was introduced, and it gave a different key code than the return key (which lives/lived where "enter" lives on PC keyboards).
I don't recall whether "enter" renamed files, and I can't check whether it does at the moment because all my mac keyboards within reach are tenkeyless, but "return" always has.
If it worked like that in other Mac apps, I wouldn’t mind. Then you would just adjust to “this is how MacOS does cut-and-paste” and after an initial adjustment it would make complete sense.
But in every other Mac app, even in TextEdit, you would Cmd-X to cut a piece of text and Cmd-V to then paste it somewhere else. The same logic is used to e.g. move an image within a note or email, which is also a file.
So Finder is simply inconsistent with the rest of the OS, and after 4 years as a Mac user I have just given up and use either drag-and-drop or a terminal when I need to move stuff.
The finder probably chooses this paradigm because cut + paste is destructive. If you cut text and never paste it, the next time you copy out cut you lose that text forever. So if you used the same paradigm for files in the finder, you could accidentally and permanently delete a file because you cut it and then fat fingered copy instead of paste. If this happens with text from a file you can often just close the file and not save to get your text back, or hit undo because cut text is part of your undo history (usually). But storing whole files in some undo history seems like it could go wrong real quick since either you couldn’t actually delete the file from disk until the history expired or the finder was restarted, or an undo might take a significant amount of time because you moved between file systems. Or imagine if the destination file system crashed during transfer or unmounted after. Then you couldn’t undo at all.
I use the "Multitouch" app from the same developer which integrates Rectangle with some other things.
Trying out the new macOS version.. it's a little fiddly to activate sometimes didn't want to go. Then the margin/spacing between the edge of the screens was annoying. Though I discovered that there is an option under "Desktop & Dock" in settings you can turn off called "Tiled windows have margins".
What I haven't figured out is if you can create a keyboard shortcut to tile left or right without using the mouse... so far have not figured out how to do that. Couldn't see an option for it.
Those settings revealed another option though to "Hold key while dragging windows to file". If you hold that key you don't actually have to drag to the edge, just move it to the correct side of the monitor (or not really move it at all if it's already on that side). Interesting alternative.
But I really often specifically use a keyboard shortcut for tile left, tile right or tile left third/middle third/right third (on a 35" Ultrawide).
Same, install Rectangle, learn shortcuts, never look back. I would happily remove it if the exact same functionality were ported to macOS (remove one more supply chain concern), but it seems it hasn’t been?
I don't know which ones you've tried, but the most popular ones (Magnet and Rectangle) have worked perfectly for me for years. I routinely forget that I have Rectangle installed.
I've been happy with Divvy for many years. It's not autotiling but the one-time config setup is intuitive after which my kbd shortcuts put things exactly where I want em, so I hardly ever think about it.
I have to use XQuartz for some apps I run in macOS. Magnet (and other apps I've tried) don't understand those windows. ShiftIt does, but it's buggy and no longer maintained.
Had to make an account just to say thanks! You literally solved one of my biggest gripes with macOS. This site honestly feels like the internet of the late aughts' last bastion. I think I'll stick around.
I didn't know about this one, thank you for posting.
Also, on most windows, you can option-click the green window bar button and get this same behavior. However, some apps, like Safari, will instead expand the window to "a reasonably large size" that will not necessarily cover the whole screen.
You can also double click the title bar to expand to fill the screen, and double click it again to return to the previous size. One caveat to this is if your application saves window sizes on close and you close with a full screen window and re-open, it won’t shrink again because the “original size” was full screen when the window was opened
Setting the "Double-click a window's title bar" action to Zoom just fills the vertical space. It doesn't adjust the width to fill available space, which is usually what I want. Finder, as an example, almost never sets the width to something usable.
True, it would be more accurate to say that what "zoom" is designed to do is expand the window as much as possible to display all the content, however the application defines that. For many applications, the result is a fully maximized window. On my MBA, Notes, Messages, Calendar, iTerm, Solvspace, and Mail all just fill the screen. For other applications that report specific content area to the OS that can mean something different. A finder window generally reshapes to show all the icons in icon view, or to maximize columns and names in list view.
The most annoying one is Safari, which arbitrarily decides on what the "best" window width is, even if the website could easily reflow to fit a wider window.
It annoys the hell out of me that there’s never been an option to invert this. I actually like the old size-to-fit behaviour and I never ever want the iOS-style full screen, I don’t want to have to hold Option to get what was once the default behaviour.
We may actually be seeing the moment where Moom[1] is no longer an essential OS X app. It can solve both window tiling and the "maximize problem" on mac and has been my first install for many years. Here's to hoping that Apple can get one basic OS feature right once.
The 'cycle' option in Rectangle.app allows just this. I use the hotkey(s) + bracket keys to cycle 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 screen windows justified left or right, and the hotkey + pipe key to cycle center justified.
These three shortcuts are embarrassingly effective and cover 99% of my window tiling. Others include the standard hotkey(s) + return for fullscreen and hotkey(s) + backspace for the previous window size..
It maximises, but slightly smaller than full maximisation, which is driving me crazy. Eg there's a 30px or so gap, and if you double tap the chrome it fills the remaining space.
If you hold option while dragging the window, yes. Otherwise dragging the window to the top of the screen is the method of moving it between spaces (e.g. separate desktop workspaces).
Raycast has window management and it has been amazing. Very easy to move windows between displays and different configurations of window size and placement.
Thanks for this! By the way, does anyone know anyone of the icon designers of Windows 3, 3.1? I would be very happy to meet them or know more about them. For some reason I'm still fascinated with those icons even after all those years.
Did you mistype or are you actually somehow using a 57 inch monitor?
If really 57”, are these multiple separate screens?
I went up from 32 to 40 and regret it, to be honest. It’s m nice for Xcode, but for any other use, it’s too big for me. For instance, I miss notifications that pop up in the top right corner, it’s just out of my field of vision.
The original Aero Snap was almost perfect. But I find the newer variation in Win11 a bit annoying as it adds a bunch of UI for tiling that is too easy to activate by accident.
BetterTouchTool used to be a mandatory install for every Mac for me. Unfortunately, at some point it started putting all my screens to sleep a few times a day. I have no idea why, and it persisted across multiple devices. I switched to Magnet once I narrowed the issue to BetterTouchTool.
I don't really care about tiling multiple windows, but I've always hated the macOS full screen behavior, and before that the old green button behavior, so an alternative that finally works well (the way Windows has for many years) would be amazing.