How to tile windows on a Mac: every method, shortcut and setting

Which way should you use?

There are five ways in, and they all do the same thing: move a window into a half, a quarter or the whole screen. Pick the one that matches what your hands are doing.

You need macOS 15 Sequoia or later for all of these, including macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27. To check your version, open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. If you're on Ventura or Sonoma, skip to tiling before Sequoia.

1. Drag a window to tile it

This is the one most people find by accident.

1. Drag a window by its title bar toward the left or right edge of the screen.
2. When your pointer reaches the edge, a highlighted outline shows where the window will go.
3. Let go, and the window fills that half of the screen.

Where you drag decides the size:

• Left or right edge: that half of the screen.
• A corner: that quarter of the screen.
• The menu bar: the whole screen (the desktop, not full-screen mode, so the menu bar and Dock stay).

To put two windows side by side, drag the first to the left edge and the second to the right edge. When you drag a tiled window away from its spot, it goes back to the size it was before.

If dragging toward the top opens Mission Control instead, that's a separate setting. See the tiling settings below.

Hold Option to tile sooner

Dragging all the way to the edge is fiddly on a big display. Hold ⌥ Option while you drag, and the outline appears as soon as you're heading toward an edge or a corner, so you can drop the window without reaching it. This works as long as "Hold ⌥ key while dragging windows to tile" is switched on.

2. Use the green button

Hover over the green button in the top-left corner of a window (don't click it, since a click makes the window full screen). A menu appears with three groups:

• Move & Resize: put this window in a half or a quarter.
• Fill & Arrange: fill the screen, or arrange this window with the windows behind it, two, three or four at a time.
• Full Screen: make the window full screen, or full screen on one side, which is Split View.

Press ⌥ Option while the menu is open to see more layouts. That's where Center is, which puts the window in the middle of the screen without resizing it.

"Arrange" layouts use your most recent windows, in order. If the wrong window ends up on the right, click the one you want first, then the one you want next to it, and arrange again.

3. Use the Window menu

Every layout also lives in the menu bar, under Window → Move & Resize, grouped into Halves, Quarters and Arrange. The same menu has Fill, Center and Full Screen Tile. Hold ⌥ Option with the menu open to see more arrangements. Each item shows its keyboard shortcut next to it, which is the easiest way to learn them.

The menu also matters for a trick in a moment: because these are ordinary menu items, you can give any of them your own shortcut.

4. Every keyboard shortcut for tiling

All of them start with Fn and Control. On newer Apple keyboards the Fn key has a globe on it 🌐; it's the same key. Click the window you want to move first, then press the shortcut. These come from Apple's own list, Mac window tiling icons and keyboard shortcuts.

Move one window

Arrange two or more windows

These place the window you're in and the window(s) you used just before it.

Full screen and Split View have no shortcuts of their own. Control-Command-F toggles full screen in most apps.

Make your own shortcuts (and get quarters)

No Fn key on your keyboard? Want a shortcut for a quarter? macOS lets you assign a shortcut to any menu item, including the tiling ones.

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard and click Keyboard Shortcuts…
2. Choose App Shortcuts and click +.
3. Leave Application set to All Applications.
4. For Menu Title, type the menu item's name exactly as it appears under Window → Move & Resize, for example Top Left.
5. Click the shortcut field, press the keys you want, and click Done.

The name must match the menu exactly, including capital letters. Pick a combination no app already uses: ⌃⌥⌘ with a letter is usually free.

The tiling settings, and how to turn tiling off

Everything is in System Settings → Desktop & Dock. Scroll down to the Windows section. There are four switches:

One more setting sits nearby: Drag windows to top of screen to enter Mission Control. If dragging a window upward keeps opening Mission Control, switch that off.

To turn window tiling off completely, switch off the first three. Windows then stay exactly where you drop them. The green-button menu, the Window menu and the Fn-Control shortcuts keep working, so you still have tiling when you ask for it. Apple's page for these settings: Change window tiling settings on Mac.

Split View: two apps, full screen

Split View is the older way to put two apps side by side, and it works on every recent macOS. The difference from tiling: the pair becomes a full-screen space of its own, with no menu bar, no Dock and no other windows.

1. Hover over the green button and choose Full Screen → Left of Screen (or Right of Screen).
2. The other side shows your other windows. Click the one you want next to it.
3. Drag the divider in the middle to change the sizes. Double-click it to even them out.

To swap sides, drag a window by its title bar to the other side. To leave, hover over the green button of either window and choose Move Window to Desktop. On a second display, Split View needs "Displays have separate Spaces" on in Desktop & Dock settings. Apple's guide: Use apps in Split View on Mac.

Split View is good for focus, like writing next to your research. It's awkward for everyday work, because you have to switch spaces to reach anything else.

Tiling before Sequoia (Ventura and Sonoma)

macOS 13 Ventura and 14 Sonoma don't have drag-to-tile or the Fn-Control shortcuts. You have three options:

• Split View, as above. Hover over the green button and choose Tile Window to Left of Screen (or Right).
• Zoom by double-click. Double-clicking a title bar zooms the window to fill the screen (or minimises it, depending on "Double-click a window's title bar to" in Desktop & Dock).
• An app, from the next section. All of the ones below run on Ventura and later.

When it doesn't work: quick fixes

• Nothing happens when you drag to an edge. Check your macOS version (Sequoia or later), then check the drag switches in Desktop & Dock → Windows. If another window app is running, it may be handling drags itself, so quit it and try again.
• The shortcuts do nothing. Most third-party keyboards have no Fn/Globe key that macOS can see. Use the Window menu or your own shortcuts. Also check that no other app has taken Control-arrow shortcuts.
• The options look greyed out. Some people find tiling only works once "Displays have separate Spaces" is on (Desktop & Dock, under Mission Control). Changing it needs you to log out and back in.
• A window won't fill its half. Some apps have a minimum or fixed size, and macOS can't make them smaller than the app allows. System Settings is one of them.
• Dragging up opens Mission Control. Switch off "Drag windows to top of screen to enter Mission Control".
• Gaps around tiled windows. Switch off "Tiled windows have margins".

Where built-in tiling runs out

macOS tiling is good for "put these two side by side". It's free and already there, and for a lot of people that's enough. You notice the limits when you work with more windows:

• You arrange every window yourself. Open a new window and it lands on top of whatever's there. Nothing keeps your layout tidy.
• Halves and quarters only. No thirds, no custom widths. On a wide monitor, half the screen is often too much.
• At most four windows on screen. The rest are still piled up behind.
• No moving between windows. There's no shortcut for "focus the window on the right". You're back to clicking or ⌘-Tab.
• The layout doesn't stick. Close a window and the gap stays; nothing fills it.

Apps that go further

Window apps for the Mac fall into three groups. Which one fits depends on whether you want to place windows yourself or have them placed for you.

Snapping apps: Rectangle, Loop, Magnet

These do what macOS tiling does, with more sizes (thirds, sixths, custom) and more shortcuts. Rectangle is free and open source; Loop is free and uses a radial menu you aim with the mouse; Magnet is a paid app in the Mac App Store. You still place each window. See ChainYourMac vs Rectangle and ChainYourMac vs Loop.

Tiling window managers: AeroSpace, yabai, Amethyst

These arrange windows automatically by dividing the screen between them. Open a fourth window and the other three shrink to make room. They're powerful and mostly driven from the keyboard and a config file, which suits developers. See ChainYourMac vs AeroSpace, vs yabai and vs Amethyst.

A scrolling window manager: ChainYourMac

The newest idea, borrowed from niri and PaperWM on Linux. Windows sit side by side on a strip that runs past the edges of your screen. Open a window and it takes the next spot at a sensible width; the windows already there don't shrink. To reach one that's off screen, swipe left or right with three or four fingers, or press ⌃⌥ with the arrow keys. It's tiling that never runs out of room. How scrolling window managers work.

That's what ChainYourMac does. The demo at the top of this page is a working model of it, so give it a swipe. A few specifics:

• Column widths of a quarter, a third, a half, two thirds or three quarters, cycled with one shortcut, plus full width. Thirds included, and you can set your own.
• Stacks: put several windows in one column, one above the other.
• Every display gets its own strip, and settings are switches and menus, not a config file.
• Runs on macOS 13 Ventura and later on Apple silicon. $19.99 once, lifetime license, free updates.

Using it? Switch off the macOS drag-to-tile settings first, so only one thing is arranging your windows. The setup guide shows exactly which switches.

Built-in tiling vs snapping apps vs ChainYourMac

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