macOS Sequoia involves a plethora of new features to replace the previous main OS - macOS Sonoma, and I am curious about the new toolkit managing the organization and layout of the open windows on Mac. Is there anybody who knows or utilizes this toolkit? Can you guys please tell me about it?
Before introducing the window tiling manager on Mac, let’s explore this new stuff first – Yabai. Yabai is a window management utility that is designed to work as an extension to the built-in window manager of macOS. It allows you to control your windows, spaces and displays freely using an intuitive command line interface and optionally set user-defined keyboard shortcuts using skhd and other third-party software.
The primary function of Yabai is tiling window management – the topic you are interested in, automatically modifying your window layout using a binary space partitioning algorithm to allow you to focus on the content of your windows without distractions. Additional features of Yabai include focus-follows-mouse, disabling animations for switching spaces, creating spaces past the limit of 16 spaces, and much more.
If you’ve used Windows 7 or Aero Snap, you’ll recognize the new window-tiling functionality in macOS Sequoia. In the lack of capability, Mac users have relied on third-party programs such as Magnet, Moom, and Rectangle to achieve comparable objectives; however, as of beta 1, window management in macOS still requires some work before it can compete with the utility of those apps.
When you drag a window to the edge of the screen, macOS Sequoia proposes a tiling position by presenting a frame. Simply release the window to drop it into place. This allows you to rapidly arrange two app windows side by side, or set four windows in corners to keep many apps visible at once. When a window is dragged to tile on one side or the other, pulling it back quickly restores its previous width and height, which is a wonderful feature.
However, the dragging system is by no means perfect. If you drag a window to the side of the screen and hold it for more than a few seconds, you may mistakenly move to an adjacent desktop area if one is open. It can also be challenging to position certain program windows so that they snap to corners.
Also, some apps are designed to not reduce past a specific size, so you may end up with tiled windows overlapping or falling off the screen. If you have a collection of apps that work well together when tiled, the tiling mechanism may create unattractive gaps between windows where the desktop wallpaper is visible, but there is a setting that can fix this.
Tiling options may be found in a new section of the Desktop & Dock menu under System Settings. Tiling, for example, can be activated by dragging windows while holding down the Option key. You can also turn off “Tiled windows have margins,” which lowers the space between windows.
macOS 15 also has new tiling settings for the green traffic light in the top corner of Windows. Hover your pointer over the green button to reveal a menu with options for moving and resizing all open windows, as well as filling and arranging them. These choices appear to work better than the drag-and-snap tiling method in its current version.
Overall, tiling windows in macOS Sequoia does not feel fully integrated. However, this is developer beta 1, and Apple undoubtedly perfected its functionality before the public release of macOS 15 in September. Therefore, you can experience this wonderful and stunning feature once you install macOS Sequoia on your Mac machine.