Niri for Mac: getting the scrollable tiling experience on macOS

Why everyone suddenly wants Niri's workflow

Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor written in Rust. Instead of cramming windows into a grid, it lays them side by side on an infinite horizontal strip. Open a new window and it slides in next to the focused one — nothing else moves, nothing else resizes. You scroll through your windows the way you scroll a timeline.

That one design decision fixes the thing people quietly hate about traditional tiling: the reflow. In a grid tiler, every new window renegotiates the whole layout. On Niri's strip, your editor stays exactly as wide as you left it, forever. Combine that calm with Rust-level smoothness and it's no mystery why Niri became the darling of the Linux desktop scene — and why "niri for mac" became a search query.

Why Niri can't run on macOS — ever

Niri isn't an app; it's a compositor. On Linux, it replaces the entire display server layer — it owns every pixel, every window, every monitor. macOS doesn't allow that. Apple's compositor (the WindowServer) is a fixed part of the operating system, and no third-party software can swap it out.

So a "Niri port" is off the table by architecture, not by effort. Anything that brings scrollable tiling to macOS has to work with the system instead — driving windows through the macOS Accessibility API while Apple's compositor keeps doing the drawing.

"Niri wasn't for Mac, so I made one"

That sentence — the founder's own announcement — is literally how ChainYourMac started. It's an independent macOS app built on the same scrolling model Niri uses: windows live on an endless horizontal strip, new windows slot in at the edge, and you navigate by scrolling instead of rearranging.

It's not a code port, and it doesn't pretend to be a compositor. It's the Niri idea, rebuilt with Mac-native ergonomics:

• A Rust engine, like Niri — window operations complete in under a millisecond, animations run at up to 120 fps, and there's no Electron anywhere.
• Trackpad gestures with momentum — swipe through the strip like scrolling a webpage, something even Linux users tend to envy.
• A GUI for every setting — width presets, focus behavior, and rebindable shortcuts live in settings panels, not a config file.
• macOS-native integration — each display and each Space keeps its own independent strip, and focus follows mouse works the way you'd hope.

Niri vs ChainYourMac, honestly

These two aren't competitors — they live on different operating systems. But if you're weighing a Linux setup against staying on your Mac, here's the fair comparison:

Being a full compositor gives Niri deeper control — it draws every frame itself and integrates with the Linux stack in ways no macOS app can. ChainYourMac works within Apple's compositor, which is exactly what makes it installable in two minutes on a normal, unmodified Mac.

What transfers from Niri — and what doesn't

If you've used Niri, the muscle memory mostly carries over. Focus moves left and right along the strip (Cmd+H / Cmd+L by default in ChainYourMac, Vim-style and rebindable), windows swap positions with a modifier, and width presets cycle with a single key so a column jumps between 25%, 50%, and 75% of the screen. Off-strip windows park beyond the display edge and glide back in when focused — the same "your desk keeps going past the monitor" feeling.

What's different is the surrounding system. You keep macOS: Spaces, Mission Control, AirDrop, your apps. ChainYourMac adds window stacking — vertical columns within the strip, which Niri handles similarly with its column model — and per-display strips that respect however macOS arranges your monitors. What you give up is compositor-level theming: ChainYourMac manages window geometry, but Apple still draws the pixels.

Which should you use?

Use Niri if…

• you run Linux (or you're happy to switch to it) — Niri is free, open source, and superb;
• you want compositor-level control over every pixel and keybinding.

Use ChainYourMac if…

• your daily machine is a Mac and switching operating systems isn't on the menu;
• you want the strip workflow with Mac-native trackpad gestures, Spaces, and multi-monitor support;
• you'd rather adjust settings in a GUI than maintain a config file.

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