I like divvy. Create your own grids. Works with a mouse or keyboard.

https://mizage.com/divvy/

I also like Witch for window/app switching. I just wish it was a little less sluggish to activate:

https://manytricks.com/witch/

Another +1 for Divvy. I have a hard time living without it.

When plugged into my large monitor, I have hotkeys set up to put a window on the left 1/3, the middle 1/3, and the right 1/3. It is so unbelievably useful.

Also when doing multiple monitors, if you do a Divvy hotkey it will move the current window to the monitor your mouse is in. This makes moving windows so fast.

Divvy user here as well, for many years at this point. They haven’t updated it in ages, and with every new macOS release I’m expecting it to stop working. But somehow, it’s still going strong. Even the global keyboard shortcuts!

For Windows, PowerToys offers something comparable to Divvy (and IMHO better): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzone...

I'm very surprised they don't distribute these tools among Windows, now that they are matured.

PowerToys name also brings a lot of good old memories :)

In fairness, many of the features from PowerToys are built in to Windows 11.

I use AltTab, completely free and I only need to fix task switching, no need for fancier features of witch.

Play around with the Witch options; it seems very sensitive to which ones you choose.

I'll throw another option: https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/index.html

I bought it in '17 for $1 - possibly the best dollar I've spent. Looks like it's $4 now. Coupled with a QMK keyboard, the modifiers are even easier to use.

I find it so strange how resistant people (not you!) are to paying trivial sums of money for things that contribute so much value.

It was $1. Now it’s $4! Like half a Starbucks coffee!

How many people would not even see this app because it’s not free?

And how about the one commented below that “looks like it’s no longer maintained?” Sounds like it’s the free choice…

I have been guilty of agonizing over spending $5 on a phone app while drinking a $5 cup of coffee.

Now I’m at the point where I don’t even want to look at free apps. Just tell me how to pay you enough money to make something good, and keep it good over time.

> I have been guilty of agonizing over spending $5 on a phone app while drinking a $5 cup of coffee.

Couple years ago I was working on a side project that touched upon what you said. The core idea was dead simple: you make a list of things you want to buy or do, along with the price. And, every time you feel like spending money on something that's either excessive or not really necessary (like a $5 coffee), you enter how much you saved. The app will then show, for each item in your wishlist, how close you're to it's price. Imagine a progress bar, inching toward the goal. Along with few other stats to encourage saving (but not to a crazy extent; we gotta live a little too).

I still have the codebase with some APIs ready. Wonder if I should just complete it and launch. I called it WIYS (What If You Saved)

Anyway, I think with software, a combination of necessity, choice & culture plays an crucial role in making people pay. For instance, I badly needed a window manager, so I'd have even paid $50 if there were no viable option. These kinda apps are tricky; if it's simple, the market will be flooded with options. If it's niche & the problem domain isn't a showstopper, people may not care. Also, we enjoy the benefits of so many open source s/w, and I think it creates a subconscious expectation to get everything for free - or at least to hunt for free stuff, even via piracy. While I still have traces of that mindset, these days I value my time more than money, especially if the cost isn't too much.

For me, I think the inhibitor is cognitive overhead.

I have paid for dozens of utilities & apps that I now longer use. Why? Because there's no more room in my head? Because even the minimal effort to keep stuff running seems like a poor ROI? Because after a while, every thing looks the same?

I dunno. It's too bad though.

Yup I gauge everything in drink prices, of which buy about one from the list daily. $1-5 = coffee, $5-10 = beer, $10-15 = cocktail. $20 is a bottle of wine.

I almost never think about spending those amounts on those things, so for anything that gets potentially more than one use it's a no-brainer.

Of course, im not on a student anymore.

Used magnet for years - absolutely gamechanging for OS/X when coming from Windows/snap-window

When moving from Windows to macOS as my daily driver I really missed the window management keyboard shortcuts and ability to easily snap a window to the left/right of the screen or maximize windows. Magnet gave me everything I wanted and the price was right. I highly recommend it. Even at $4 it’s well worth the price given how well it works and it’s regularly updated.

That being said, reading this thread I’m realizing how many great options there are for these kind of scenarios on macOS.

Snap left/right and maximize are actually built-in by using "Tile Window to Left of Screen" and "Tile Window to Right of Screen" from either the Window menu or option-clicking the green window button:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/12/04/how-to-speed-up-w...

There aren't built-in keyboard shortcuts, but you can add a keyboard shortcut for any menu item, including these:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-keyboard-sho...

There's a preference to make double-clicking the window titlebar fill the screen instead of minimizing. And you can add a keyboard shortcut for this too:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/372719/maximize-wi...

I'd like to put my hand up and suggest Magnet, too.

For ages, I used Amethyst, which is a "tiling window manager" for macOS, but somewhere along the way it got annoying to install/keep working properly due to some of Apples shenanigans.

So I moved to Magnet. I still use it daily, but honestly forget its there because I use it so much! Just feels like native macOS behaviour at this point.

For the lazy: https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/

Loving Magnet too. Take half screen (crtl+option+arrow), maximise (ctrl+option+enter) and move to another monitor (ctrl+option+cmd+arrow) are pretty much the only shortcuts I use when it comes to window management.

Wow, I didn't know there was a paid Pro option, but the same developer also makes the open source app Rectangle, which sounds like the same thing minus a few features. I use it daily. https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle/

I recently started using the pro version for the custom shortcuts. On a portrait mode monitor I like to split the pane vertically into thirds, so it makes that possible. It's also a pretty cheap buy at $10.

I use Moom since 2012: https://manytricks.com/moom/

It’s a paid app too, but it was worth every cent. The app was updated for free since my first purchase ten years ago!

Another happy Moom user! From around the same time period.

Can't really use OSX without it.

I'm using Spectacle for 5-6 years.. I see now that it's no longer maintained, and Rectangle was developed based on Spectacle.

News to me. I’m still happily using it and haven’t really seen any reason to stop.

Hummingbird is another tool that does this. https://github.com/finestructure/Hummingbird

Amethyst is another great tiling manager, although it's much more focused on the i3-style tiling than just easy snapping. Used it for a while (although I really still don't like Mac's window management).

https://ianyh.com/amethyst/

Formerly named Hookshot for those who had it a while ago.

That's why tons of people don't realize there was a "Pro" option- because there wasn't one.

The creator (who also made the free open source Spectacle-fork Rectangle app) renamed/rebranded Hookshot into Rectangle Pro sometime about 5 months ago.

Yup I came in through hookshot. I was a paid user there and my license was honored when it was released as rectangle pro. What a stand up guy.

I've used https://bahoom.com/hyperdock/ since Mac OS 10.4 on my Powerbook G4. Still works great and is updated for every macOS release. Best $10 I ever spent.

I also use Rectangle, the same developer also make https://hyperkey.app which works very well in tandem with it (you can also get the same features using Karabiner, but I like how polished and plug&play Hyperkey is)

Does anyone know if it's possible to configure Rectangle (the free/OSS version) to use modifier key + Arrow<Vertical> + Arrow<Horizontal> to move a window into one of the four corners?

I currently use Hyper + Arrow<Direction> for TRBL placement but it doesn't let me configure Hyper + two arrow keys for corner placements. Is that something not possible with the free/OSS version?

What is “hyper”?

I didn’t realize there’s a pro version so thank you for posting this. I’m going to give it a try and will pay happily if it improves my workflow.

+1 for rectangle

I use a 55in oled screen as my main monitor and rectangle is fantastic for grid window management. CMD+(1,2,3,F1,F2,F3) to move windows around the grid etc