How to use Window Tiling with macOS Sequoia

Window management on Macs gets an upgrade with macOS Sequoia, which introduces window tiling and makes it much easier to work on tasks within multiple applications by arranging windows as you please. 

Windows users moving to a Mac (and there’s an ever increasing number of those) will have come across this before. Window tiling is a great way to maximize the value of your available desktop space, even when working with multiple displays. 

What Apple says

Announcing the feature at WWDC in June, Apple explained: “New ways to arrange windows let users stay organized with the layout that works best for them. By simply dragging a window to the edge of the screen, macOS Sequoia automatically suggests a tiled position on the user’s desktop. Users can release a window right into place, quickly arrange tiles side by side, or place them in corners to keep even more apps in view. And new keyboard and menu shortcuts help organize tiles even faster.”

In essence, it really is (almost) as simple as that, once you learn how it’s used.

macOS Sequoia has many ways to tile windows

Perhaps reflecting that individual productivity relies on slightly different working patterns, there are several ways to tile windows:

• You can drag the window to the edge of the screen.
• Or press the option key while dragging the window to a highlighted area.
• Or tap the green button at the top left corner of the application window.
• Or use the Windows item in the menu bar.
• Use keyboard shortcuts.

Window tiling means you can organize one or more applications easily, one app may be in one window or one full screen window. One or more applications can be visible in two windows alongside each other, three windows with one large window and two sharing half the screen, or four application windows. You can also have windows one above the other. One caveat is that some application developers (including Apple with News) have set window sizes for their apps that don’t let you see everything in one of these views.

How to tile windows on a Mac

This is how each method works:

Tile by drag

Drag an application window to the edge of your display — it can be the top, left, or right, or even any corner — and a highlighted area should appear in the region in which your window sits. Release the window and it will snap into position once your pointer reaches the edge of the screen; don’t be impatient as the Mac responds to the position of your cursor to decide where the window is placed.

Use the Option key

A faster way to get your windows in order is to press the Option key while dragging the window toward the top, left, or right edge of the screen and release that window once it is in the highlighted area. It will snap into place, though if you intend on placing four windows you must move the cursor all the way to the corner.

The Green button code

When in an application window, hover the pointer over the green button. A menu will appear offering you several window options, four in Move & Resize and another four in a section called Fill & Arrange. To see any available additional layouts tap the Option key. 

• To tile the active window, click one of the layouts in the Move & Resize section.
• To tile multiple windows chose a layout in Fill & Arrange.

Use the menu

While working in an application, choose Window in the Menu bar and choose one of these options:

• To tile the active window, select one of the options offered in the Halves or Quarters selection in Move & Resize.
• To arrange multiple windows, again choose Move & Resize and then choose one of the layouts gathered within the Arrange section.

You can also center the active window on the desktop, enter full screen view or fill the desktop with the active window using options in the menu.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Power users will want to learn the following keyboard shortcuts for window tiling on the Mac. 

• Fill: fn – control – F 
• Center: fn – control – C 
• Left half: fn – control – left arrow key 
• Right half: fn – control – right arrow key 
• Top half: fn – control – top arrow key 
• Bottom half: fn – control – bottom arrow key 
• Arrange Left & Right: fn – control – Shift – left arrow key 
• Arrange Right & Left: fn – control – Shift – right arrow key 
• Arrange Top & Bottom: fn – control – Shift – top arrow key 
• Arrange Bottom & Top: fn – control – Shift – bottom arrow key

How to turn window tiling features on or off

You can disable some of the ways used to invoke windows tiling; this can be useful if you rely on other Mac gestures within your existing workflow. You can get to windows tiling controls in System Settings > Desktop & Dock, then explore the Windows section, where you will find three options:

• Tile by dragging windows to screen edges.
• Hold the Option key while dragging windows to tile.
• Tiled windows have margins. 

The first two options let you enable or disable some of the windows tiling user interfaces, while the third option lets you get rid of that bit of space inserted between windows when working with them.

How to turn window tiling off

If you don’t want to use window tiling on your Mac you can also turn it off in the Windows section which you will find in System Settings >Desktop & Dock.

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