18 Mac Window Arrangement Tips and Tricks

There are many ways to move and resize windows on a Mac without requiring third-party apps. Learn how to set up your windows like you want them, and even a method for saving windows positions.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some tips for moving and resizing windows on your Mac. 
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Now when it comes to positioning and resizing windows on the Mac a lot of people turn to third party apps to do it with a lot of precision like to have one app on one side of the screen and one app on the other side of the screen. But you can do a lot of things using the built-in tools in macOS. But a lot of these tools are kind of hidden. You don't really know that they are there just by looking at menus. 
So the most basic thing is to, of course, move a window. Now you can move a window by clicking and dragging at the top of the window but the trick is to avoid any other buttons that may be there. So look for blank spaces. Like right here there's a nice blank space. I can click, drag, and reposition the window. There are other blank spaces as well. But each app will have a different type of window with different things at the top so it's tricky sometimes to find a good space to click and drag. Sometimes you even have the ability to click and drag from other areas of the window. For instance in the Finder if you turn on the Status Bar at the bottom notice how the color here kind of matches the Title Bar at the top. You can actually click and drag that and move the window from the bottom instead of the top. When dragging a window it will actually snap to the edges of the screen. For instance if I were to drag it to the left here it'll snap there and I push a little further and I have to push quite a bit before it finally goes past the edge. This makes it easy to have it snap to the edge before going beyond it so you can get it perfectly matched to the edge of the screen. The same thing with the top or the bottom of the screen. If you have the Dock there it will snap there to the edge of the Dock before you can push past it. 
Now you have the same thing if you have two windows. So let's create a second window here and if I were to move this over to the right and then bring it to the left it will snap to the edge of this window here. I can push past it if I want but it's real easy to get it precisely to match this edge here. The same thing vertically as well. It will snap there. Now keep in mind it doesn't really snap the other way. When I go past it easily goes past. Then when I go into the window it will snap before going past it. 
Now let's say you don't want it to snap like that. But one way to avoid that is using the same modifier that you typically would use in graphics apps to avoid snapping. Hold the Option key down. If you hold the Option key down the snapping doesn't occur. It moves fluidly past the edge of another window or the edge of the screen. 
Now to resize the window there are a ton of techniques. One of the simplest is to do what's called Zooming. You could see under the Window Menu there's Zoom. You also can click on the Green button but you have to hold the Option key down and then you could see the zoom function is right there or just Option click on the Green button and you could see Plus and that means Zoom. Another way to zoom is simply double-click in the same areas of the top that you would use to drag. So any area without a button. So using anyone of those techniques I can zoom. 
Now zooming doesn't do the same thing that maximize does on windows. Instead what it will do is it will take the window to its optimal size. So let's resize this window here and I'm going to double click and you could see it doesn't maximize the window. But it increases the size enough so the size of the window fits the content inside. Now what does that mean?  How does it determine what the proper size is? Well, that depends on the app. Every app has the right to figure that out on its own. Some apps may just default to actually maximizing the window and having it fill the screen. While other apps may look at the document or content inside and resize the window to perfectly fit what is there with no extra space around it. So, for instance, here in Pages, if I were to double click here at the top you could see it actually shrinks the window a bit. But it got rid of all the excess space around the page. If I were to change the zoom here and do it again you could see it chooses a different size. The size to perfectly fit the page. Any larger and you would see this extra space here. 
Now to resize a window manually all you would need to do is drag the sides or the corners. So move your pointer over the sides and you could see how the cursor changes there. Then click and drag and you could drag that side. You could do that with any side that you want. If you do a corner you're dragging that corner which is equivalent to dragging two sides at the same time. Now if instead of dragging you double-click something interesting happens. It will snap to the screen size. So, for instance, if I were to double click on the right side here you could see it snaps the right side to the right side of the screen. Likewise I could do the left side of the screen or I could do the bottom or top. Now if you double-click a corner an interesting thing happens. It will actually snap the corner to the corner of the screen. So if I double-click on the top of the left corner it snaps both the top and the left side to the side of the screen. If I double-click the right side you could see what happens there. 
Now the Option key does something really interesting with dragging the sides or corners. If I were to drag a side normally it just drags that one side. But if I hold the Option key down it will drag that side and the opposite side by the same amount. Notice when it does it it will snap the side to the edge of the screen and not go past that. I can do the same thing with the top and bottom here. Now if I do it with the corners it works the same way. It will take that corner and the opposite corner and both of them will expand. Now those two corners mean that all four sides are actually moving at the same time. Simply by Option dragging any corner. Now using the Shift key with the side will actually do something interesting. It will do kind of the opposite of Option. It will allow you to drag that side plus the adjoining sides. So the right side and top and bottom. But not the opposing side. So I can drag the Shift and you could see how I'm dragging three sides there holding this one steady. It can do the same thing with any side. 
What happens if you hold both Shift and Option? Well, when you do that with any side what happens is all four sides will drag out like that. So it's very similar to doing Option and dragging a corner. Now when you do Shift and Option with a corner you'll notice there is a difference from doing that and doing Option. Option will allow you to drag the corner anywhere you want. But Shift Option will actually keep the same ratio for the window. So if it's say a square window it will stay square no matter where I move. Whereas with just Option the right corner will always match where the pointer is. 
Now what happens if you combine double clicking and the Option key? Well, double-clicking, as we know, will snap to the edge of the screen. So if we Option double-click it will snap both sides to the edge of the screen. Like that. We can do the same thing with the top and bottom. Now if we Option double-click a corner, any corner, then all four sides should snap to all edges of the screen. That is, in fact, what happens. So Option double-clicking any corner will actually get you the same result on your Mac as you would by maximizing in Windows. 
Let's say you want to have a window fill half the screen. You could estimate that, drag it up there and drag this corner here and get it about halfway. But there's actually a way to do that automatically. You can access it in two places. One is the Green button here. You can see how there's Enter Full Screen and Tile Windows. That involves Full Screen and Split View apps. But if you hold the Option key down these change. You see Zoom at the top which we've looked at before. Move Window to Left and Move Window to Right is here. So I can move this to the left side of the screen filling exactly half the screen. So if I have another window like this I can hold the Option key down and then choose Move Window to Right side of screen. Now I have two windows, both taking up exactly half the screen. I can actually do this using the Window Menu here. You could see the Tile Command, if you hold the Option Command down these change to Move and you can move the same way you do with the Green button but using that menu. The great thing is that since these are Menu Commands, Move Window to Left Side of the Screen, you can set these up as keyboard shortcuts. So just remember exactly what this says, Move Window to Left Side of Screen, go to System Preferences, then Keyboard, Shortcuts, App Shortcuts, and create a New One. Set it for All Applications and type the menu title exactly. Then let's do a keyboard shortcut. Let's do Command Option Left Arrow and Add. Then let's add one for Move Window to Right Side and do a keyboard shortcut, Command Option Right Arrow. So now I can grab a window like this, Command Option Right Arrow moves it to the right side of the screen. Command Option Left Arrow moves it to the left side of the screen. You could see them here. The menu items actually will stay there. You don't need the Option key anymore after you add a keyboard shortcut. So even if you don't use the keyboard shortcut that often it's worth it to add it just to avoid having to use the Option key for the menu. 
Now at the very beginning I mentioned you can click and drag here at the top to move the window around. But there are actually other ways to do that if you enable them. Go into System Preferences. Then to Accessibility. Then go to the Motor Section and Pointer Control. You have to have a trackpad to do this. So click Trackpad Options. Then you have Enable Dragging. Then you can set it to Without Drag Lock, With Drag Lock, or Three Finger Drag. Let's start with Three Finger Drag. When I set it to that I could use three fingers on the trackpad and I don't have to click down. I just touch the three fingers while I'm in the same blank areas here at the top and now I can move the window around. A lot of people prefer this. You could also go and change this to Without Drag Lock. So here you double tap on the trackpad but don't release after the second tap. Then move around. Now if you set it to With Drag Lock what will happen is the same thing. Double tap and continue holding at the second tap and it will drag it around even if you lift your finger up and then go back. You're still dragging. You need to tap once to unlock it. 
Now there is another way to drag but it requires you set a special preference. One that you can only set in the Terminal. So if you run the Terminal and use this command, defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool (for boolean) true. Then you have to restart your Mac or you could more simply log out and then log back in. This should take effect. Now what happens is in addition to being able to click and drag at the top of a window like that to drag around, you could hold the Control and Command key both down and then click anywhere in the window. So even if there is something there that can be clicked on, click and drag, and you can drag the window around like that. You can see even that the window jumps a little bit to indicate that that's what you're doing. It only works with the Control and Command key down. But it is neat to be able to drag a window from any point. To disable it just do the same command but False and log out, log back in, or restart.
So let's look at some practical examples for using this. Let's say I want to position three Finder windows so I can work with different files. I could take this window, for instance here, and move it to the left side of the screen. Then let's create a New Finder Window and now I'll move this one here to the right side of the screen. But I want to fit a third window in. So what I'm going to do is grab the bottom here and drag it up. Now I'm going to add the third Finder window here and I'm going to drag this till it snaps to the bottom right hand corner. Then drag the top left hand corner to make it smaller than both of those and then drag it up and I'll be able to easily snap it into place. So now I've got three panels here in the Finder to be able to work with some files. 
Say I'm working in Pages here and I want to be able to access files on the right side of the screen. So what I can do here is first zoom so the Pages window only takes up the amount of space it needs. Then I can take this Finder window here. Snap it to the right side of the screen. Drag this left side of the screen here and snap it over. So now it's the perfect width. Then if I hold the Option key and double-click on either the top or the bottom both the top or bottom will go to the top and bottom parts of the screen. 
Now let's say I like this arrangement but the problem is I'm going to be going into other apps and bringing up other things and this stuff is going to get in the way. I'd like to Save it. Now you can't really save a window's position. But you can use Mission Control to create a new Desktop that has both of these windows in it so new things won't get in the way. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to do Command Up Arrow to go to Mission Control. You can see I've got Desktop 1. Let's add Desktop 2 here. I'm going to drag it to the left to switch them. So now I've got my main Desktop here and I could do other things like bring up Safari for instance here and Mail and do all sorts of other stuff. Then I can switch over to this screen and this has my Pages window and my Finder window. Just because there is a Finder window here doesn't mean I can't also have one here. This one could be the one I'm doing other work in but I have this Finder window specifically there just to support the work I'm doing in this Pages document. I haven't really Saved the positions of these windows anywhere. I've just have two separate Desktops and one is setup exactly the way I want to get this particular project done. The other one is for everything else. Of course I can setup many more Desktops to handle different things in different ways.
So I hope this gives you some ideas of how you can manage the windows on your Mac's Desktop without having to resort to a third party app. Third party tools are great because they allow you to customize your Mac to fit your needs. Some people may find that they have some extreme needs for positioning and moving windows. So using a Window Management Tool like Rectangle, say, might be a really good option for some people. But for others, like myself, I find that I could just use these built-in tools to get exactly what I want without much fuss and without adding a third party app. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Here’s that Terminal command:

defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true

Comments: 13 Responses to “18 Mac Window Arrangement Tips and Tricks”

Dick Vitales

3 years ago

How did you get the desktop display?

Gary Rosenzweig

Dick: Sorry, I don't know what you mean. Is there a time stamp in the video you can point me to?

Margaret Parkes

a list of the actions would be really appreciated - thanks

Chuck King

Is there a way in to have a window format itself into the part of the screen I want and have it reduce its size so that I can see the entire contents without sliding the bar.

Chuck: Format itself? Not sure what you mean. Do you mean resize? But how would it know what size you want it as? Just resize it as you like.

Marcia Karon

My windows are not "snapping" as described. I have a downloaded credit card statement opened in Preview on the left and Anydesk with Quickbooks on the right, but as I try to enter the credit card charges Quickbooks gets weird. One time, when I tried to enter a charge it would maximize, so I tried restarting and the next time it did this thing where the window kept moving. Not sure if this is an issue with Anydesk or Quickbooks, but still no snapping and the right side just would not stay where

Marcia: Try it with other apps to determine whether it is a problem with that particular app or not. Do you see it working with Finder windows, for instance?

Kathy

Hi Gary, another excellent week of tips. Thank you. Two things, I find using either Safari or Firefox that I am unable to use the keyboard shortcut Option-Cmd-Rt or Lt arrows to move to right or left of desktop like I am able to with most other apps. Is this expected with browsers? I can use by going to window & selecting move there however. Just curious. Thanks

Kathy: Definitely works in Safari, I use it All the time. But the default is control and arrow, not comand+option.

Hi Gary, When I use control & arrow with safari as you mention in your reply, I am able to access mission control. However, I wasn't clear...I am experimenting with having three windows open on one desktop like in your video using the keyboard shortcut cmd-option-and left or right arrow to move the windows. I am able to use option-cmd-arrow (left or right) to move one finder window (or notes etc) to the left & have another one open and moved to the right side of the screen but not in safari...

Kathy: You'll need to use different keyboard shortcuts then as it looks like Safari is already using those for tab navigation.

Hi Gary, That's probably the reason. Thank you .

Rick. Grossman

Best list of the hidden commands ever. Now I get why Ii get frustrated— dozens of ways, but you have to memorize where they are or how to use them. The Mac is like an escape route in room—you can’t just open the door you have to figure out how. You also recognize how mere mortals aren’t genetically coded to understand Apple. You explain that 3finger tap must be simultaneous, only in one part of screen, at certain times, if the should move, etc. U=missing part to OS/documentation/help!

Comments Closed.

18 Mac Window Arrangement Tips and Tricks

Comments: 13 Responses to “18 Mac Window Arrangement Tips and Tricks”

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