Niri for macOS: can you run niri on a Mac?

Every way to get niri-style scrolling on macOS

Checked against each project's own repository on 6 October 2026:

ChainYourMac: the native niri-style app for macOS 13 and later

ChainYourMac began with the line "niri wasn't for Mac, so I made one." It's a Rust engine with a SwiftUI settings app. It does one layout, the scrolling strip, and goes deep on it: stacks you can build from either side, tabbed columns, width presets plus wider and narrower, full width, center modes, a minimap of the strip while you navigate, drag-to-reorder by title bar, and session restore that keeps column order, stacks and tabs across a restart. Every setting lives in a GUI that applies instantly, and the shortcut recorder works on AZERTY, QWERTZ and Dvorak.

Pros: runs on macOS 13 through 26; no config file needed; only the Accessibility permission; uses native Spaces; you can email the developer. Cons: paid; closed source; Apple silicon only; scrolling only, with no BSP mode.

OmniWM: free and feature-packed, Tahoe only

OmniWM (v0.7.5, 5 October 2026; the repository moved to OmniNull/OmniWM) is a free, GPL-2.0 window manager that offers niri-style scrolling containers or Hyprland-style Dwindle on each workspace. It also has a long list of extras: a quake terminal, scratchpads, an Overview, a command palette and the omniwmctl CLI. Trackpad gestures with 2, 3 or 4 fingers scroll the columns.

Pros: free and open source; very active; two layouts; lots of power features. Cons: needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later; asks for Accessibility and Input Monitoring; uses its own workspaces with one macOS Space per display. Full comparison: ChainYourMac vs OmniWM, or see OmniWM alternatives if you're not on Tahoe.

PaperWM.spoon: free, scriptable, inside Hammerspoon

PaperWM.spoon is a "tiled scrollable window manager for MacOS" written in Lua for Hammerspoon. It's MIT-licensed and actively maintained, and it supports trackpad swipe scrolling. You install it by cloning it into your Spoons folder and editing init.lua.

Pros: free; endlessly scriptable; runs wherever Hammerspoon does. Cons: you maintain a Lua setup, and its README warns about off-screen windows showing at the edges and about multi-display quirks. Step-by-step: PaperWM.spoon setup guide.

AeroSpace and yabai: great tilers, but not niri

These come up in every "niri macos" thread, so it's worth being clear. AeroSpace is an "i3-like tiling window manager" (public beta, v0.21.3-Beta). yabai tiles with binary space partitioning (v7.1.25). Both are excellent, and neither has a scrolling layout. Every new window splits the visible screen and reflows the others, which is exactly what niri was built to avoid. If you actually want i3 behaviour, see ChainYourMac vs AeroSpace and vs yabai.

Smaller projects exist too: Nehir is a scrolling-only fork of OmniWM, and komorebi for Mac (early, v0.1.x) lists a scrolling layout.

Your niri keys on a Mac

niri's defaults use Mod, which is Super on a real session. On a Mac, ⌘ belongs to apps (⌘C, ⌘W, ⌘Q), and plain ⌥ types characters and moves by word. So ChainYourMac puts the window manager on Control+Option (⌃⌥) and keeps niri's shape:

All of them can be re-recorded, and an action can have several shortcuts. The full table has first/last column, column widths, heights and monitors, plus what has no equivalent. It's in niri keybindings on Mac.

Your niri config on a Mac

The layout options niri users actually tune all exist in ChainYourMac, as settings in the app and as keys in its optional TOML file:

• preset-column-widths → Preset Window Widths (preset_column_widths). The defaults are 25, 33, 50, 67 and 75%. niri ships 1/3, 1/2 and 2/3.
• gaps 16 → gap_inner and gap_outer, separately, in points (default 8).
• center-focused-column "never" | "on-overflow" | "always" → center_focused_column, same three values, same default.
• focus-follows-mouse / warp-mouse-to-focus → focus_follows_mouse / mouse_follows_focus, both off by default, as in niri.
• focus-ring → optional focus_border with color, width and radius. It's off by default.

Window rules, animations, outputs and workspaces are covered line by line in niri config on macOS.

Multiple monitors and Spaces

niri's per-monitor strips were a big reason it was written. Its README says windows can never "overflow" onto an adjacent monitor. ChainYourMac follows the same rule on macOS. Every display has its own strip with its own focus and scroll position, and a window near the edge snaps flush to it instead of spilling onto the next screen. ⌃⌥N sends a window to the next display. Dragging a window onto another display adds it to that display's strip. Configuration → Displays can leave any one display unmanaged.

For workspaces, ChainYourMac uses macOS Spaces, and each Space has its own strip. You switch with Mission Control's swipes or Control+number shortcuts, if you've enabled them in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Mission Control. That isn't niri's vertical workspace column, but it's native, so it works with full-screen apps and everything else macOS does. OmniWM takes the other approach and runs its own workspaces on a single Space per display.

Which should you use?

Use niri if…

• you run Linux or are happy to switch. It's free, open source and superb.

Use OmniWM if…

• you're on macOS 26 Tahoe, want free and open source, and will use extras like scratchpads, the Overview or a CLI (full comparison).

Use PaperWM.spoon if…

• you already live in Hammerspoon and enjoy maintaining Lua (setup guide).

Use ChainYourMac if…

• you're on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia or 26 Tahoe on Apple silicon and want the strip to feel built in;
• you'd rather adjust settings in a GUI than maintain a config file;
• you want a developer you can email when something is off.

FAQ