Mac Basics: Moving And Resizing Windows

Moving a resizing windows is a fundamental skill for using your Mac. There and many ways to resize a window and lots of tricks that use modifier keys and double-clicking.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to move and resize windows on a Mac.
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So when you work on a Mac you're working a lot with windows. Windows like this one. This is a Finder window here. But you also have windows when you're working with documents, say in Pages or TextEdit, or in a browser like Safari. You can move windows around on the screen and resize them as you like. To move a window what you need to do is click and drag at the top of the window. You can do it anywhere along the top as long as there is no other button in the way. So, for instance, I could click here where there is an empty space and drag the window around. You can do it over here on the left side as well. Anywhere on the top. Of course if there is a button there then that button is what I'm going to trigger when I click. So grab an empty space to move the window around. You can't drag a window past the Menu Bar there at the top. But you can drag it below or off to the side. But most of the time you just want to keep the whole window in view even if other windows are covering it. 
Now you can resize windows really easily by dragging any of the four sides or any of the four corners. For instance if I wanted this window to be narrower I would drag the right side and move it to the left. Notice that when I put the cursor over the edge it changes and shows an arrow pointing in both directions indicating what I can do. I can click and drag left or right to resize the window. I could do that with the bottom as well but notice that now I have up and down arrows indicating that I can drag up or down. I could do it with the top or with the left. When you drag a corner you are dragging two sides. So the most common thing to do is to drag the bottom right hand corner to resize the window. It will leave the top left hand corner exactly where it is but will allow me to shrink it horizontally and vertically or expand it horizontally or vertically. But you could drag any other corner as well. You can drag the lower left hand corner. You could drag the upper right hand corner and you could drag the upper left hand corner. 
This is essentially all you need to do to be able to position and resize the windows as you like. But there's a whole bunch of extra functionality hidden here if you know how to access it. So first I want to show you how windows react to each other. Specifically their edges. Now you may have been told that you need to get third party apps to have windows kind of click in place. But you don't! You can do a lot of that using just macOS by itself. For instance if I were to drag the right side of this document's window and move it near the left side of this TextEdit window it locks in place. Kind of snaps there. You have to try it out for yourself to kind of feel what it's like. But it's easy to actually get the left side of this window and the right side of this window to match perfectly. That works when you're moving windows too. So I can move this window. But if I move it over here it kind of snaps over. You could see as I move it there it snaps in place. It's easy to line these up. Give this a try on your own to see what it feels like. That works for the top, bottom, left and right sides as well. So it's really easy to setup your windows so that they are in specific locations. Like I could make these two windows work like this and maybe even add another one down here.
Now I've shown you how you can drag the sides and the corners. But there are other things you can do as well. For instance if I were to double click the right side the window will expand all the way to the edge of the screen. That works with any side. So I can do the top. I can do the bottom. I could do the left. It also works with corners. So if I double click the bottom right corner it will snap that corner to the bottom right corner of my screen. Now holding down modifier keys does things as well. If I hold down the Option key and drag the right side the right and left sides will move together leaving the center of the window exactly where it is. The same thing with the top and bottom. Option dragging either the top or the bottom will leave the center of the window where it is and move both the top and the bottom at the same time. If I Shift Click and Drag it will hold the center for the entire window while at the same time moving three sides. The side you are moving and the two adjacent. So the top and bottom and right. In other words the opposite side is kept in the same position. So I can move this side here and you could see the right side of the window is kept in the same position. If I move the top, the bottom of the window is in the same position. 
What if I use the Option key with a corner? Well, keeping things consistent it will move that corner and the opposite corner at the same time. In other words all four sides move but the center of the window stays the same. So Option Click any of the four corners and you could see how the center of the window stays there and the entire window shrinks or expands. 
Now what if I use the Option key while double clicking? So if I were to use the Option key and drag the right side it drags both the right side and the opposite side. If I Option double click it will move both the left and right sides to the edges of the screen. The same thing will happen with the top and bottom. Option and double click the top or bottom moves both the top and bottom to the edges of the screen. 
So the ultimate is to Option double click a corner. This will move all four sides to the edges of the screen. This is what a lot of people are looking for when they say they want to maximize a window. A lot of times people will instead use this green button here which instead goes to full screen mode creating a separate desktop with just this app. Hiding the Menu Bar and all of that. A lot of times people don't want that. They still want the window. They just want the window to fill the maximum amount of space. Even Option clicking on the green button and using Zoom doesn't quite do that. What Zoom does is it will expand the window to be the size it needs to be to fit all the content. Sometimes that is full screen. But other times, like here in the Finder with just these documents in a Finder window, this is the amount of space needed to show everything. So it only expands to this size. If you want the Finder window to actually fill the screen, Option double click any corner to do that. 
So here are two other tricks I want to show you. One is you can move a window without bringing it to the front. Notice if I want to move this Finder window. If I click on the Toolbar here at the top I can drag. But notice it brought the window to the front as it should if you click on the window. If you want to actually drag the window without bringing it to the front hold the Command key down. Then you could drag the window. Notice it remains in its position here behind this other window. You could even resize a window with the Command key down. Notice how I can resize this window here without ever bringing it to the front. That's handy to know especially if you want to keep a window here up front but maybe you want to shrink this one down and then move it behind that window.
Another tip is there's a way to really quickly make both of these windows cover exactly half the screen. Now I'm not talking about using SplitView. SplitView is just like full screen but you tile one to one side, click, and now you've got that second window on the other side. You're in full screen mode but with two apps instead of one. What I'm talking about is holding the Option key down with the cursor over the green button. You'll see this changes to Move Window to Left Side of the Screen and Move Window to Right Side of the Screen. This will resize the window and move it to the left side. Now with this window I could do the same thing but I will use the Option key and choose Move Window to the Right Side of the Screen. Notice it has to say Move, not tile. Tile will take it into a separate desktop. But Move will actually just resize the window. So now you could see I've got two windows perfectly sized to fit half the screen each. You could also do the same thing in the Window Menu here. Notice there are two Tile Window Commands. Hold the Option key down and those change to Move Window Commands. So you could do Move Window, select this one. Move Window and now you've got it like that. Notice that when it's already on the right side of the screen that menu option is missing. But you can Revert to the original window size. So I can move this to the right side of the screen. I can move now it over to the left side of the screen. Those are now on top of each other. So those options are handy to know about.

Comments: 11 Responses to “Mac Basics: Moving And Resizing Windows”

Jim Terrinoni

3 years ago

Admittedly I hesitated before watching thinking “The basics are the basics what could I learn? Still, it comes down to what you don’t know that will effect what your solution becomes. I didn’t even have a problem to solve, which made me more apprehensive. My 2021 resolution was to spend at least 15 min./day learning my existing software better (and there’s no finer way then watching MacMost videos End result: another great video with multiple useful tips. Glad I watched.

Mike

Hi Gary
I enjoyed your video. I thought I knew all there is to know about resizing windows, but there you are, there was a few things I didn't know! Thank you, and keep up the good work.

Jean-Claude

What most people want to do with windows is get them arranged quickly and neatly on the screen. There is one app that does this: Better Snap Tool. And you can customize it any way you want: half, third, quarter screen. I can instantly arrange 4 windows on my screen. Or I can set up drop zones. Really great time saver. I paid $1.99 on the App Store in 2014 and I couldn't live without it. I use it every single day. Trying it is buying it. Some apps are just worth the money. This is one of them.

ROBERT M LISANTI

Thanks Gary!!
It's amazing how im still learning to use my 2011 Imac by watching all your videos! I plan on getting a 2020 this year!

Diane

Can keyboard shortcuts be assigned to move page left, and move page right?

Gary Rosenzweig

Diane: Yes. Try it.

CMS

You solved what I was searching for earlier today: I have been trying to use the Zoom function with my new 13" Macbook Air (which I love, perfect keyboard compared to 2016 Macbook Pro). In Zoom, my cursor tended to revert back to the bottom left of the screen and I could not make it stop doing that, repeatedly. I had to give up. This does not occur when I hold Option and double-click a corner to fill the screen. This is a big deal for me after going from a 15.5" screen down to 13. Many thanks!

Hubert

Hi Gary. Good morning. When I want t save a doc in word (for Mac), a small window opens with my file tree. However, the size of the window is too small and not pracical. Hence I have to resize it, basically by dragging the bottom of the window down. Is there a way that I can make that window to always open with a/that bigger size?

Hubert: Sounds like you mean the File Save dialog. There is no way to set a default, Microsoft would have to do that in their app.

Christy Hemenway

Wow. I've tried to use multiple individual desktops in Full Screen but I often forget that they are even there, and then I get frustrated looking for them. But knowing these tips is terrific. And using the Command+click/drag is a winner too. Always happy that I'm on your Patreon channel. I get way more than my money's worth. Thank you Gary!

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Mac Basics: Moving And Resizing Windows

Comments: 11 Responses to “Mac Basics: Moving And Resizing Windows”

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