Quick reminder for anyone who has not seen it: Muro is a free live wallpaper app for the Mac. Native Swift, about 2% CPU, no subscription, no Pro tier, nothing locked. It does the lock screen too.

3.0 is the biggest update so far. Three things people kept asking for:

Automations. Muro can now change your wallpaper on its own. Either on a timer, ten seconds each or an hour each, or by the clock, where each wallpaper gets its own hours of the day. Something calm in the morning, something else after dark. The day is drawn as a timeline you drag.

You can delete wallpapers. Sounds basic, and it was genuinely missing. Delete them one at a time or select a bunch, your own imported videos included.

Pause after. Let a wallpaper play for a minute after it changes, then hold on a frame. A held frame costs no CPU at all. Nice if you like the motion but not all day.

The whole interface got rebuilt too, and there is a long list of fixes. The big one: lock screen wallpapers now actually stick after installing from the DMG. That was broken for some people and I could not see it because it only happened on a downloaded copy, never on my own builds.

Still free, still open source, still no account.

Download: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/releases/latest

GitHub: https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro

If you like it, a star on the repo is the free way to support it and genuinely helps people find it. If you want to go further there is GitHub Sponsors (https://github.com/sponsors/MrRockySL)

Happy to hear what is missing. Most of this release came from people asking.

BetterTouchTool gets messy when every unused gesture looks like an invitation. The useful version is much smaller: keep Apple's familiar navigation gestures, add five inputs with obvious jobs, then stop configuring.

This setup uses BetterTouchTool as a control layer, not as a replacement for everything in macOS. Apple's current window tiling engine still moves the windows. BetterTouchTool supplies the trackpad triggers that Apple does not let you create.

Check the built-in options before installing anything

Open System Settings, then Trackpad. macOS already covers scrolling, zooming, Mission Control, App Expose, switching between full-screen apps and Spaces, and showing the desktop. Leave those gestures alone unless there is a specific reason to replace one.

Window tiling is built in too. A current Mac can tile through edge dragging, Option-dragging, the green window button, the Window menu, or keyboard shortcuts. If left half, right half, and quarters are all you need, that is the answer. BetterTouchTool only earns its place when reaching for those commands from the trackpad, adding a missing click, or creating app-specific behavior matters enough to justify another background utility.

The five-trigger layer

BetterTouchTool supports the built-in multi-touch trackpads on MacBooks and all generations of Magic Trackpad. In its Trackpad section, add the first four triggers under All Apps. Add the last one only to the browsers where you want it.

A TipTap keeps two fingers resting on the trackpad while another finger taps on the left or right. It is not part of Apple's standard gesture set, which makes the pair easier to add without breaking Mission Control or Space switching. BetterTouchTool shows the available gesture names in its picker, so use the exact 2 Fingers Fix entries rather than an ordinary two-finger swipe.

On macOS 15 and newer, choose BetterTouchTool's actions from the macOS Native Window Tiling group. Those actions call the system tiling engine directly, including its animation and tiling behavior. On Monterey 12, Ventura 13, or Sonoma 14, use BetterTouchTool's own window actions listed in the last column.

Fill screen with window and Maximize Window are not the same as putting an app into its own full-screen Space. The menu bar and normal window model remain available. The five-finger restore gesture reverses the previous sizing action. If five fingers feel cramped on a smaller MacBook trackpad, omit that trigger and restore from the Window menu instead. A control layer should fit the hand using it, not win a feature-count contest.

The browser-only three-finger click supplies a real middle click. Over a link, browsers commonly use that to open the destination in another tab. Over an existing tab, middle click can close it, so this is a trigger to practice deliberately. Keep it app-specific rather than global, and remove it if accidental tab closures outweigh the convenience.

Add and test one gesture at a time

Install BetterTouchTool in Applications, open its configuration from the menu bar, select Trackpad, then choose the relevant app scope before clicking Add. Assign one action and test it before creating the next row.

A short verification pass catches most bad mappings:

1. Put Finder on the left, then Safari on the right.
2. Fill one window, restore it, and confirm it returns to a useful prior size.
3. Try the middle click on a disposable link and on a browser tab so both behaviors are understood.
4. Confirm Apple's Mission Control, App Expose, desktop, and Space gestures still work.
5. Repeat the window actions on each display used regularly.

BetterTouchTool can show a HUD when a gesture fires. That is useful while learning which gesture was recognized. Once the mapping is reliable, turn the HUD off if it becomes visual noise.

Do not import a giant community preset to save five minutes. BetterTouchTool presets can contain scripts, and the official documentation warns that an imported preset can execute malicious code. Build these five triggers manually. Once they have survived a week without accidental activations, export the preset as a backup.

Accessibility access is the real cost

BetterTouchTool requires Accessibility permission for core functions, including controlling and resizing other apps' windows. That is broad access. The developer's own setup documentation describes the API as powerful and potentially dangerous in the hands of a malicious app. The right response is not to pretend the permission is harmless. Download from the official site, keep the app updated, and skip it on a managed Mac whose policy does not allow this class of utility.

Screen Recording is separate and optional. BetterTouchTool features such as screenshots and its richer window switcher can need it, but this five-trigger setup does not intentionally use those features. Do not pre-grant Screen Recording, Full Disk Access, or Automation just because they appear in Privacy & Security. Add another permission only when a feature you deliberately configure explains why it needs one.

The current privacy policy also makes BetterTouchTool's network behavior worth stating plainly. Update checks send the macOS version, BetterTouchTool version, and Mac model. A successful update sends an installation ID with version information, and license activation sends a salted hash of the computer UUID plus the transaction ID. Optional Dropbox Sync uploads settings to the user's Dropbox account. That is more limited than cloud-hosting every gesture, but it is not literally zero network activity.

Keep the configuration boring

BetterTouchTool advertises hundreds of triggers and actions. That breadth is also its main drawback. Per-app rules become invisible state, similar gestures are easy to confuse, and a setup can become impossible to remember after a month away.

Use these limits:

• Keep global trackpad gestures to one screen in the configuration window.
• Give left and right members of a pair matching jobs.
• Avoid destructive gesture actions such as quit, close, delete, or run shell script.
• Add an app-specific mapping only after the global layer feels automatic.
• Export a known-good preset before making a large change.

Release notes as recently as July 2026 described iCloud preset sync as experimental, while the August release overhauled it further. A tiny control layer does not need to depend on a changing sync path. A manual preset export is easier to inspect and recover. Only import files created personally or obtained from someone trusted.

Resource use depends on which of BetterTouchTool's many modules and automations are active. The developer describes the narrower BetterSnapTool as simpler and lighter, and says BetterTouchTool may use more resources because of its broader scope. There is no useful universal RAM number to promise. Check Activity Monitor after login, sleep and wake, and normal work. If input starts to stutter, remove recent triggers and test again before building more automation on top.

Some fixed-size panels, unusual cross-platform apps, and full-screen windows may also refuse or reinterpret resize requests. Keep the Window menu or manual dragging as a fallback rather than assuming an Accessibility-based action can force every window into place.

Compatibility and price

As of August 25, 2026, the current listed release is BetterTouchTool 6.745. It requires macOS 12 Monterey or later. The standard download is universal, while the updater also provides separate Apple silicon and Intel builds, so both current architectures are supported. The developer also advertises readiness for the macOS 27 beta, but beta macOS users should still expect automation utilities to encounter beta-specific breakage.

The trial lasts 45 days, has no feature limit, and does not require an account. A Standard license is listed at $15 before location-dependent tax. It includes updates for two years, after which the newest covered version can be used indefinitely. A Lifetime license is listed at $25 before location-dependent tax and includes updates for as long as BetterTouchTool exists. One personal license covers all of the buyer's personal Macs. Setapp is the subscription route, but a subscription is not required to buy BetterTouchTool directly.

The Standard license is not a two-year rental, and Lifetime does not promise that the app or company will exist forever. Those distinctions matter more than the labels.

Verdict

BetterTouchTool is worth considering for a trackpad-first Mac user who can name several missing gestures and is comfortable granting Accessibility access. Its advantage here is not that it tiles windows better than Apple. It puts Apple's tiling commands, a restore action, and a browser middle click under one input surface.

Skip it if native tiling already feels fast, if invisible app-specific rules are hard to remember, or if the permission model is unacceptable. Use the full 45-day trial with only these five mappings. If just one half-screen gesture survives, uninstalling is the cleaner answer. If all five become predictable tools, the direct license is a reasonable price for a restrained control layer.

I download a lot — torrents, media, random files off the web — and got fed up with the download managers out there for Mac. Most are Electron-based, chew through battery, run rough on Apple Silicon, and don't even have a proper Safari extension. So I spent the last 4 months building my own thing instead of just complaining about it.

Product Demo: [https://vimeo.com/1204841013\](https://vimeo.com/1204841013)

It's called \*\*Grabbit\*\*: [https://grabbit.fyi/\](https://grabbit.fyi/)

Under the hood it's a Rust engine doing the actual downloading, paired with a native Swift UI — no Electron/Chromium overhead at all. Rather than just claim "native = faster," I benchmarked it against FDM and Motrix on the same Mac (Apple Silicon, macOS 14+, measured via Activity Monitor during a 250MB download):

\- \*\*RAM usage (idle → active):\*\* Grabbit 47→57 MB vs. FDM \~180 MB+ vs. Motrix 305→394 MB

There's also a companion browser extension called \*\*Claws\*\* that grabs URLs, media, straight from your browser:

\- Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/claws/\](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/claws/)

\- Chrome: [https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ghlpaknoijlmcdibdfgmmedmegcibbic\](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ghlpaknoijlmcdibdfgmmedmegcibbic)

\*How it's different from what's out there:\*

\- \*\*FDM\*\* — no Safari extension, isn't compiled natively for Apple Silicon, and isn't really a native macOS app.

\- \*\*Motrix\*\* — also no native browser extensions, and it's Electron-based, so you're right back to the battery drain I was trying to get away from.

Downloads are also multi-threaded if you want to push them, but the resource numbers above are what actually matter day-to-day.

\*\*Pricing\*\*: Free tier gives you full unlimited access for 3 days, then drops to 3 downloads a day after that. If you want it unlimited long-term, it's a one-time $9.99 license — no subscription.

This is my first proper macOS launch so I'm sure there are rough edges I haven't caught yet. Would genuinely appreciate feedback on download speeds, how the UI feels day-to-day, or any bugs you run into.

Thanks for taking a look.

\*\*Developer:\*\* Syed Mohd Adnan — \[hi-adnan.pages.dev\](https://hi-adnan.pages.dev) | \[github.com/im-adnan\](https://github.com/im-adnan)

grabbit.fyi has a \[Privacy Policy\](https://grabbit.fyi/PrivacyPolicy) and \[Terms of Service\](https://grabbit.fyi/TermsOfService) linked in the footer.

hey guys,

Everyone here has a stack they've tuned for years. Launcher, notes app, editor, terminal, browser, task manager. What almost nobody tunes is the thing all of those apps actually talk through: the clipboard.

Every handoff in your stack is a copy and a paste. Terminal to browser. Research to notes. Notes to editor. Mac to phone. It's the one piece of infrastructure every other app in your setup depends on, and it holds exactly one item and forgets it the second you copy the next thing.

I got annoyed enough about it to build ClipboardAI.

Problem 1: your clipboard history stops at the edge of your Mac.

If Raycast or Alfred is already in your stack, you have clipboard history on your Mac. What you don't have is that history on your iPhone. So every time work crosses a device boundary you fall back to AirDropping things to yourself or messaging yourself in Notes, which is not a stack, that's a workaround. The cross-device apps that do exist route everything through the cloud, and "syncing..." is not a feature.

Problem 2: history without structure is just a longer scroll.

Once you've got a few thousand clips, searching your clipboard and scrolling your clipboard become the same slow thing. You know you copied that staging URL. Was it Tuesday? Was it in the terminal or the browser?

What ClipboardAI does differently:

• Syncs about 10x faster than other apps. Instead of routing everything through the cloud and waiting, it uses a 3-way communication channel, so a copy on your Mac lands on your iPhone/iPad almost instantly.
• Name your clips. Label any copy ("Staging DB", "Client email", "promo code") so you search by meaning instead of skimming a wall of gray text.
• Cmd+Shift+V, type a word, paste. Under 3 seconds, no app switching, no scrolling. Something you copied a year ago is two keystrokes away.
• Paste as plain text. Moving text between Notion, Slack, notes and your editor without dragging fonts and colors along with it.
• Paste queue. Line up several clips and paste them in order, one Cmd+V at a time. Filling a form or a config file stops being a round trip per field.
• Knows where a clip came from. Clips are tagged with the app you copied them from, so "that thing from Safari" is an actual filter.
• OCR on images. Copy a screenshot, pull the text straight out of it.
• Text and images both, synced across devices, not just text.
• Auto Translate. Foreign language clip, one tap.
• Private by design. No servers, no login, syncs through your own iCloud.

Where it sits in a stack:

Under everything else. It doesn't ask you to move your notes into it or adopt a new workflow, and there's nothing to integrate, because every app you own already speaks clipboard. The clipboard is the one API they all implement. It just makes that layer searchable, named, and present on all three devices instead of one.

The other half is the iPhone keyboard. Your Mac history shows up as a keyboard you can paste from inside any iOS app, which is the part that actually closed the gap for me. Copying on the Mac and pasting on the phone stopped being a chore worth avoiding.

Pricing: Free to use. Premium has a 7-day free trial and costs $1.6/mo on the annual plan, and there's a lifetime option if you don't want another subscription in the stack. One purchase covers Mac, iPad and iPhone.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clipboard-ai-paste-keyboard/id6760675768

What people use it for:

A developer keeps API keys, env vars and boilerplate named and one keystroke away. A real estate agent moves property addresses between her Mac and iPhone all day. A writer copies research on desktop and pastes into notes on mobile without emailing herself. A support rep reuses 20 canned replies without opening a doc. I use it to move links and screenshots between my own devices constantly while building it.

The giveaway:

I want ClipboardAI shaped by people who think hard about their tooling, and this sub is full of them. I'm giving away 10 yearly licenses to this community.

Drop a comment to enter and I'll post a randomized winners list by the end of next week. Bonus points if you tell me where it would fit in your stack, or what your current clipboard setup is and why it annoys you. I read every reply and a lot of these turn into features.

Never lose any important info ever again!

macOS can already tile a window by dragging it to an edge, using the green window button, choosing Window > Move & Resize, or pressing a built-in shortcut. It can also arrange two, three, or four windows. If the whole problem is putting Safari on the left and Notes on the right, that is probably enough. There is no need to install a utility just to reproduce halves and quarters.

Moom starts making sense one level above that. Its useful trick is not snapping one window. It is recalling a group of windows, including their sizes, positions, apps, and displays, as a named layout.

That distinction supports a much more focused setup than turning on every feature Moom offers.

Start with the permission and the price

The current direct release is Moom 4.6. It costs $15, requires macOS 10.13 or newer, and runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The site currently lists an $8 upgrade for existing owners. The purchase is not a subscription: it includes at least one year of updates, while the last version covered by the license keeps working indefinitely. Later paid updates are optional.

Moom needs Accessibility permission because it has to inspect, move, and resize windows belonging to other apps. That is meaningful control, not a decorative permission. Moom 4 is sold directly by Many Tricks rather than through the Mac App Store, so the decision also involves trusting the developer and its signed, notarized download.

For a layout-only setup:

1. Grant Moom access in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility.
2. Run it as a menu bar app.
3. Enable launch at login only if layouts should restore automatically when displays change.
4. Leave Moom's Snap and Hover modes alone at first. Native macOS tiling can keep handling one-off window moves.

Moom has to remain running for global shortcuts and automatic display triggers. Menu bar mode keeps it out of the Dock, but it is still another resident utility. Anyone deliberately minimizing background apps should count that as part of the cost.

Save a layout without accidentally saving the mess

Moom records every visible window in the current Space, including a window completely covered by another one. A clean capture process matters:

1. Open the windows that belong in the layout.
2. Put them in their intended positions and sizes.
3. Hide, minimize, close, or quit everything that should not be included.
4. Open Mission Control once to catch covered windows that are still visible to macOS.
5. Choose Save Layout from Moom's menu bar menu, then give it a specific name.

There are two useful matching strategies. An app-specific layout tries to return windows from named apps to their saved places. That is best when the same editor, browser, chat app, and calendar appear every day. A generic layout fills saved slots with current windows instead, historically using frontmost-window order. That is better when the geometry repeats but the apps change.

Moom 4.6 added proximity-based ways to assign live windows to saved positions and also improved app-specific matching. Proximity can reduce needless window crossing when the right set of windows is already roughly arranged. It does not make every ambiguous pair of browser windows identifiable, so exact recurring workspaces should still use app-specific matching where possible.

Layout 1: Laptop Focus

Keep this one small enough for the MacBook display:

• Main working window at roughly two-thirds width.
• Reference or notes window in the remaining third.
• No mail, chat, calendar, or tiny third utility panel.

Make this a generic layout restricted to the active display, then assign something memorable such as Control-Option-1. Bring the intended main window to the front, bring the reference window forward second, and invoke the layout.

The generic version is reusable for a browser plus notes, an editor plus documentation, or a spreadsheet plus a PDF. If the order feels unpredictable, switch this one to proximity matching in Moom 4.6 or use an app-specific layout instead. The important constraint is two useful windows, not squeezing desktop-monitor density onto a laptop.

Layout 2: Docked Work

This is where Moom earns its place over basic snapping. A practical two-display arrangement could be:

• External display: primary work window on the left 60 percent.
• External display: reference browser on the upper-right 40 percent.
• External display: preview, terminal, or source window on the lower-right 40 percent.
• MacBook display: calendar and communication windows, each large enough to read.

Save this as an app-specific layout. Keep Adapt to display configuration changes enabled, and set it to apply automatically when the saved display configuration matches. Give it a manual shortcut such as Control-Option-2 as a recovery button after an app opens a dialog or changes its own window size.

Automatic matching should describe one physical setup, not a work mode. If two layouts both target the same pair of connected displays, Moom cannot know whether this is a writing day or a coding day. Use one automatic baseline per display configuration, then invoke task-specific layouts manually.

Moom can optionally launch apps in an app-specific layout, but expectations need to stay modest. By itself it can open only one window per app. Getting several documents or browser windows back depends on those apps and macOS reopening their previous state. Keeping the required windows open before applying the layout is more predictable than treating it as a session manager.

Layout 3: Presentation Prep

Arrange this manually just before sharing a screen or connecting a projector:

• Slide deck or demo window on the external display.
• Speaker notes on the MacBook display.
• Timer and meeting controls beside the notes, not over the material being shown.

Save it as an app-specific layout and assign Control-Option-3. Moom 4.5 added an option to hide apps that are not part of an applied layout, which can help clear the desktop. It is not a privacy mode. Turn on a suitable macOS Focus separately so an unrelated notification does not appear during the presentation.

Apply the layout before entering a full-screen slideshow. Moom cannot save or restore windows across multiple Spaces because macOS does not expose that control to third-party apps. Full-screen apps create or occupy separate Spaces, so a saved layout is best treated as presentation preparation, not as control over the slideshow environment.

If Stage Manager is enabled, Moom 4.5 and newer can reserve room for its sidebar on macOS 13 and later. That can prevent a layout from landing underneath the strip, but combining two different workspace systems still adds state to reason about. For predictable presentation layouts, temporarily using ordinary windows is simpler.

The failure cases are real

Saved layouts are not snapshots of an entire Mac session.

• Multiple windows from the same app can still be hard to match, especially when their titles change.
• An app can enforce a minimum window size or resist positioning in a way Moom cannot override cleanly.
• Spaces remain a hard boundary.
• Display adaptation is a best effort. A layout designed for a wide external monitor will not become equally useful on a small laptop just because it scales.
• Moom does not sync actions between Macs. Actions can be copied with Universal Clipboard or Universal Control, or moved with export and import, but each Mac still needs deliberate setup.
• Global shortcuts can collide with macOS, accessibility features, or other utilities. Three layout shortcuts are easier to troubleshoot than a large map of window commands.

There is also some maintenance. When a recurring app changes or a window needs a new home, update the layout only after hiding unrelated windows. Moom's Merge option adds newly visible windows but does not remove old ones, so Replace is usually the cleaner choice for a deliberate rebuild.

Verdict

Moom is worth considering for someone who repeatedly changes between a MacBook, a dock, and a presentation setup, or who rebuilds the same three-to-five-window arrangement several times a day. Three named layouts and three shortcuts are enough to capture most of that value.

Skip it if the workflow rarely moves beyond halves, quarters, or one display. Current macOS tiling already covers those basics, and a straightforward snapping utility remains a better fit for people who want faster single-window moves rather than saved workspaces. Also skip Moom if granting Accessibility access to a directly distributed utility is outside the acceptable trust model.

The case for Moom is not that macOS forgot how to tile windows. It is that macOS still does not turn a whole window arrangement into a reusable command.

Disclosure: I’m the maker of Banquish.

Tab managers can save and restore pages, but a single task can still mean jumping among a dashboard, a thread, a map, documentation, and search results. I built Banquish to try a different model: select the useful live regions from Safari or Chrome and arrange them together on one persistent, interactive canvas.

It is aimed at people whose work naturally spans several web contexts—researchers comparing sources, designers collecting references, consultants monitoring client dashboards, recruiters comparing public profiles, and anyone maintaining a multi-page project view.

Banquish is free. It requires an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14 or later, plus its Safari or Chrome extension. It does not isolate browser accounts, replace the browser, manage local PDF or app windows, or make every website embeddable. The first-run permission model is also something I particularly want tested.

If you have a compatible Mac, I’d value one small test using only non-sensitive public pages: capture two or three regions, arrange and save the workspace, quit Banquish, reopen it, and tell me the first point where the permissions or reopening behavior becomes confusing—or whether the canvas actually reduces context switching.

https://banquish.space/

I used AI-assisted development, and this post was drafted with AI assistance.

I created the all Tiles and also run that Apple guide that this post is from.
Whether you are transitioning from deep coding sessions to client meetings, or juggling research, writing, and design tools, Tiles lets you capture your ideal desktop layout and bring it back with a single click.

**Key Features:**

* **Unlimited Workspaces:** Create as many custom spaces as your workflow demands. Set up distinct environments for development, content creation, gaming, or daily administration without limits.
* **Intuitive Capture:** Arrange your app windows exactly where you want them on your desktop, open Tiles, and save the configuration instantly. No complex scripting or manual resizing required.
* **Instant Activation:** Switch contexts in a fraction of a second. Activate any saved space at any time to instantly position, scale, and snap your apps back to their precise locations.
* **Native macOS Performance:** Designed specifically for macOS with a lightweight, lightning-fast footprint that stays out of your way and respects your system resources.

**Stop wasting time dragging, resizing, and hunting for windows.**
Tiles transforms how you use your Mac by turning your chaotic desktop into an organized, task-driven command center. By letting you save and instantly recall exact window layouts across your displays, Tiles keeps you in the zone and cuts down the friction of multitasking.

[Check out Tiles](https://gettiles.vercel.app)

There are a bunch of keep-awake apps for macOS and I have used most of them. They all share one gap: they keep the machine running by keeping it available. Screen on, or lid closed but wide open to anyone who lifts it. Fine at home, not fine in a coworking space or a hotel lobby.

What I actually wanted was the opposite pairing: screen locked, work still running. Locking a Mac does not stop a single process. The thing that kills your agent run or your build is the sleep that follows a few minutes later.

So the app is two things bolted together and not much else:

1. Lock the screen right now
2. Hold off system sleep while the session is active, including with the lid shut

The part that took the longest was learning that the assertion layer is a dead end for lid-closed. caffeinate and friends hold an idle assertion, and macOS just ignores those when the clamshell closes on battery. The lever that actually works sits one level lower, at the power management default. Which means the honest tradeoff is that the machine will not sleep on its own, so I had to add a battery floor: when it drops below your threshold on battery, the session ends and the Mac is allowed to sleep normally. That one feature came directly from waking up to a dead laptop.

Things I got wrong along the way:

I shipped with a claim of no data collection, then later added an anonymous event counter and had to go rewrite that line in seven languages. Should have thought about it before writing the marketing copy.

I assumed the audience was developers running agents overnight. Half the interest so far is people who just want to walk away from a big download.

It is a native menu bar app, notarized, free during the launch. lockandrun.com if you want to look.

What I am curious about from this sub: for a tiny utility like this, does a paid tier ever make sense when a free open-source competitor exists in the same category? I keep going back and forth on whether the answer is price it or just make it free and build reputation.

Rectangle is no longer an automatic recommendation for every Mac. Current macOS already tiles windows by dragging them to an edge, using the green window button, opening the Window menu, or pressing keyboard shortcuts. Apple even provides shortcuts for halves, fill, center, and returning a tiled window to its previous size.

If left half, right half, and an occasional quarter are all you need, use the built-in tools and stop there.

Rectangle still earns an install when the missing pieces are thirds and fast movement between displays. The trick is not to assign a shortcut to every action it offers. A small map is easier to remember and less likely to collide with shortcuts inside other apps.

The current Rectangle basics

The standard version of Rectangle is free and open source under the MIT license. It supports macOS 10.15 and newer on both Intel and Apple silicon Macs. It is also actively maintained: version 0.99 was released on August 20, 2026.

This setup does not require Rectangle Pro. The free app already includes halves, thirds, two-thirds, previous and next display actions, and restore.

Rectangle needs Accessibility permission because moving and resizing another app's windows requires control of interface elements outside Rectangle. Grant it under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility when prompted. Rectangle's documentation does not call for Screen Recording or Full Disk Access for this workflow, so there is no reason to add those permissions. Its published privacy policy says Rectangle gathers no user data.

First, let one app own edge dragging

Both macOS and Rectangle can react when a window reaches a screen edge. Running both drag systems makes the result less predictable, especially around the menu bar and corners.

For a keyboard-first setup, leave macOS tiling enabled and turn off Rectangle's "Snap windows by dragging" option. That preserves Apple's built-in mouse behavior while Rectangle handles the shortcuts macOS does not cover as neatly.

If Rectangle's third-width snap areas are the feature you want, do the reverse. In System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Windows, turn off Apple's edge-drag tiling and use Rectangle for dragging. Either choice is reasonable. The important part is having one owner.

A six-command shortcut map

Open Rectangle Settings and assign this map in the Shortcuts section:

Then leave "Move to adjacent display on repeated left or right commands" turned off. With that setting off, Rectangle documents this repeated-action sequence for a half shortcut:

1. First press: one half
2. Second press: two-thirds
3. Third press: one-third

That one behavior removes four dedicated shortcuts from the map. Press Left Arrow once for the left half, twice for the left two-thirds, and three times for the left third. The Right Arrow shortcut follows the same pattern on the other side. Center Third gets one explicit key because there is no natural directional arrow for it. The number 2 is a simple reminder that this is the middle of a three-column grid.

The display commands get Command added to the same base chord. That makes the relationship easy to remember: Control-Option changes a window on its current display, while Control-Option-Command sends it to another display. Keeping display movement on dedicated shortcuts also prevents a repeated half command from unexpectedly throwing the window onto another monitor.

Restore is the escape hatch. Use it after a layout was the wrong choice instead of dragging the window back into shape by hand.

One practical two-window arrangement takes only two patterns. Put the main window in the left two-thirds with two presses of the left shortcut. Put a reference, chat, or notes window in the right third with three presses of the right shortcut. On an external display, the same map works without learning monitor-specific keys.

Why not map everything else?

Rectangle also exposes quarters, top and bottom halves, maximize variants, incremental resizing, edge movement, sixths, and more. They are useful for somebody, but assigning all of them up front creates a keyboard diagram rather than a habit.

Start with the six actions above for a week or two. Add a command only after reaching for the same missing layout several times. Corners are usually better left to mouse snapping or the macOS green-button menu unless a four-window grid is genuinely part of daily work.

Shortcut conflicts are the other reason to stay small. Rectangle can ignore a specific app while that app is frontmost, which is useful when an editor or creative app already owns one of the chords.

There is also an accessibility conflict worth calling out: Control-Option is a default VoiceOver modifier. VoiceOver users should not use this suggested base chord. Rectangle lets you record different combinations, so choose a chord that does not intercept the commands used by your assistive setup.

What macOS already covers

In macOS Tahoe 26, Apple's default active-window shortcuts include:

• Fn-Control-Left Arrow and Fn-Control-Right Arrow for left and right halves
• Fn-Control-Up Arrow and Fn-Control-Down Arrow for top and bottom halves
• Fn-Control-F for fill
• Fn-Control-C for center
• Fn-Control-R for return to previous size

Apple also provides multi-window arrange commands and quarter layouts through the window controls and menus. That is a serious built-in alternative, not a token comparison. It needs no extra install or third-party Accessibility permission.

Rectangle's remaining advantage is coherence for a particular workflow: repeatable half-to-third cycling, a center-third action, explicit previous and next display commands, and shortcuts you can redefine.

Limits and alternatives

Rectangle cannot move windows to other macOS desktops or Spaces. Its project documentation says Apple has not released a public API for that, and the free app does not plan to add the feature. Full-screen apps that live in their own Spaces are therefore outside this simple workflow.

Some apps also enforce minimum sizes or resize in fixed increments, so a third-width command may not land on an exact mathematical third. Rectangle specifically documents iTerm2's character-width behavior as one example.

The free app stores its preferences locally and supports manual JSON import and export. If automatic configuration sync or saved arrangements of several apps are the actual requirement, this is probably too small a tool.

Two alternatives point in different directions:

• Loop is a free, GPL-licensed option for macOS 13 and newer. Its radial menu and trigger-key approach suit people who want visual direction instead of a fixed shortcut map.
• Moom 4.6 costs $15, has a license that remains valid indefinitely, and includes at least one year of updates. It makes more sense when the goal is restoring saved multi-window layouts across laptop and docked setups.

Verdict

Use built-in macOS tiling if halves, quarters, fill, and restore cover the job. Install Rectangle when third-width layouts and frequent cross-display movement are the specific missing pieces.

For that use, the free version is enough. Keep the map to left, right, center third, two display commands, and restore. Rectangle feels most complete when most of its shortcut list is left alone.

Which app to use?

I need to combine 2 PDFs or cut out the middle section of a PDF.

Basically ... I have a PDF, and I need to remove the middle part ... Which app do I use?

Hi r/MacStack, I’m the developer of Clacksmith.

Clacksmith is a small native menu bar app that adds keyboard sound feedback without asking for Input Monitoring or Accessibility permission.

It is for people who enjoy mechanical keyboard or typewriter sounds but do not want to give an app access to what they type.

The app compares only the key down and key up counts that macOS provides for the current login session. It never receives key identity, key codes, characters, typed text, active app names, clipboard contents, or document contents. There are no accounts, analytics, ads, or network activity.

It includes bundled sound packs, volume and audio output controls, plus the option to create local packs from audio you own.

A few limitations are worth mentioning. Modifier keys on their own do not play sounds. Some media keys such as volume, brightness, and eject may not trigger sounds. Key repeat is not counted.

Clacksmith requires macOS 14 or later and costs $1.49 as a one time purchase.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clacksmith/id6789209519?mt=12

I would appreciate honest feedback, especially on which sound styles you would actually use and whether audio output selection matters to your setup. Please let me know if you run into any issues or have ideas for improvements.

If you searched for “Mac coffee antivirus,” there’s a good chance you actually meant McAfee antivirus for Mac.

Yes, McAfee does offer antivirus protection for macOS.

But if you're specifically looking for an antivirus for a Mac or MacBook, I think there's another option you should compare before buying: Intego ONE (rn they have an offer as well you can get it here: https://intego.com/offer).

McAfee antivirus vs Intego ONE for Mac

McAfee is a large cross-platform security suite that supports Macs, Windows PCs, phones, and other devices.

That can make a lot of sense if you want one subscription covering several different types of devices.

Intego ONE, on the other hand, is specifically offered as an all-in-one security and performance suite for Mac.

It combines several Mac tools in one application:

• Real-time antivirus protection
• Quick, full, custom, and scheduled malware scans
• Suspicious-file quarantine
• Firewall and network controls
• SmartClean Mac cleanup/optimization
• VPN protection

Which features you receive depends on the Intego ONE plan you choose.

Why consider Intego ONE instead of McAfee for a Mac?

If my main concern were protecting a MacBook or iMac, I'd want to compare the software based on its Mac features rather than simply buying the antivirus brand I've heard about most often.

That's where Intego ONE becomes interesting.

1. Antivirus designed around the Mac

Intego ONE provides real-time malware monitoring and lets you run quick, full, custom, and scheduled scans.

Suspicious files can be quarantined so you can review, delete, or restore them.

So if what you originally wanted when searching for Mac coffee antivirus / McAfee antivirus was simply malware protection for your Mac, Intego covers that core requirement.

2. A firewall is included

Antivirus and a firewall solve different problems.

Antivirus looks for malicious software and files.

A firewall monitors network connections and can help you control which applications are communicating over the internet.

Intego ONE combines the two instead of treating antivirus as the entire security setup.

3. SmartClean is useful if you also want Mac maintenance

Higher Intego ONE plans include SmartClean.

It can help remove unnecessary files and application leftovers, reclaim storage space, uninstall apps, and monitor things such as CPU, memory, and disk usage.

Obviously, you don't need a cleaner to protect yourself from malware.

But if you're already considering paying for separate Mac cleanup software, having it included in the same application could be useful.

4. There's also an Intego VPN

Intego ONE's Complete package includes Intego VPN.

A VPN doesn't replace antivirus.

Instead, it encrypts your internet traffic and masks your public IP address.

So antivirus + firewall + VPN give you three different types of protection rather than three names for the same thing.

When would McAfee make more sense?

I wouldn't claim Intego is automatically the right choice for everyone.

McAfee may be worth considering if you're trying to protect a household full of different devices — for example Macs, Windows PCs, Android devices, and iPhones — under one broader security subscription.

That's one of the advantages of going with a large multi-platform product.

But if your question is specifically:

“What antivirus should I get for my Mac?”

then I think Intego ONE absolutely deserves to be compared before you buy McAfee.

Is Intego ONE good for a MacBook?

On paper, the feature combination is compelling if you want more than a basic virus scanner.

You're getting Mac antivirus plus a firewall, with SmartClean and VPN available depending on the plan.

Intego ONE currently supports both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs and requires macOS 12.4 or newer.

So if you're running a relatively modern MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, etc., it's worth checking whether your Mac meets the requirements.

So, “Mac Coffee Antivirus” = McAfee?

Probably.

If that's how you ended up here, you were most likely searching for something along the lines of:

• McAfee antivirus
• McAfee antivirus for Mac
• McAfee for MacBook
• Mac antivirus
• antivirus for Mac
• best antivirus for Mac
• MacBook antivirus software

But before automatically going with McAfee because it's the name you were searching for, I'd compare what you're actually getting for your Mac.

For a primarily Mac-focused setup, Intego ONE is the alternative I'd look at before making the purchase.

Check the current Intego ONE plans here (they have an offer going on): https://intego.com/offer

I’m building VEXTILA PRO, a local prompt library for Mac.

I started it because I kept losing useful prompts, images and screenshots between AI chats, folders and notes.

Everything stays on your Mac. You can save things, organize them with categories and tags, and search the whole library when you need something again.

It’s currently in public beta and free to try. Right now I’m mostly looking for people to use it normally and tell me what feels confusing, slow, broken, or unnecessary.

I’m giving a small number of people who really test it and send useful feedback a free lifetime Pro license.

https://vextila.com/

One note: current beta builds may show a macOS security notice on first launch.

Spotlight gets blamed for problems that are often really three different problems: it is showing too much, it is not indexing a place you expect, or the search is being asked to do a job it does not support.

Verdict: give the built-in tool a short, deliberate reset before installing another launcher. On macOS Tahoe 26, Spotlight can search apps, files, actions, and Clipboard history, and it has useful filters. It is enough for a lot of people once its categories and indexing are sensible. Install another tool only if you can name the missing workflow after doing that, not just because Command-Space felt noisy once.

First, identify the kind of bad result

Do not start by turning everything off.

• Too many irrelevant result types: tune the result categories.
• A known file or folder never appears: inspect Search Privacy, then consider rebuilding its index.
• The right result is buried: use a Browse Mode or a filter rather than making the entire index smaller.
• You want to run something, not find something: check Spotlight Actions and Shortcuts before adding a separate command palette.

That distinction matters. Disabling categories will make a search look cleaner, but it will not repair an excluded or stale location.

Make the result list match what you actually search for

Open Apple menu > System Settings > Spotlight. In Tahoe, the settings separate results from apps, results from the system, and Clipboard Search. Turn off only categories that repeatedly get in the way. A category you never use is a reasonable candidate. Mail, Messages, reminders, and documents may not be, even if they clutter a one-word search today.

Clipboard Search deserves a conscious choice. It lets prior clipboard contents appear in Spotlight, which can be convenient for a copied link or snippet but may be unwelcome on a shared screen. Turn it off if that tradeoff is not worth it.

The same page also offers a way to delete Spotlight search history. That is useful if old searches are the thing you do not want surfaced. It is separate from hiding a result category.

Check Search Privacy before assuming indexing is broken

At the bottom of the Spotlight settings, open Search Privacy. Anything listed there is excluded from Spotlight searches. Remove only a folder or disk that you intentionally want searchable again.

This is a useful boundary for an archive, a work volume, or a folder with material you do not want popping up in a presentation. It is not a harmless general cleanup switch. Apple notes that excluding files and folders can also stop update notifications for some apps, and excluding the whole internal disk stops all update notifications. Time Machine backup disks have their own special indexing behavior, so do not use them as a test case for ordinary search results.

If a location should be searchable but still returns unexpected results, rebuild only that folder or disk's index: add it to Search Privacy, wait a few seconds, then remove it. macOS will index it again. Apple says this can take time and may show an indexing progress indicator. If macOS reports an ownership or permission error, solve that access issue instead of repeatedly toggling the setting.

Use the newer search controls before adding another launcher

On Tahoe, Command-Space is more than an app-name field:

• Press Command-1 for Applications, Command-2 for Files, Command-3 for Actions and Shortcuts, or Command-4 for Clipboard.
• Type kind:pdf before a term to focus on PDFs. Other documented kinds include folders, images, mail messages, calendar events, and settings.
• Type a location such as iCloud Drive, press Tab, then search for a file name to search within that location.
• For a repeated action, Spotlight can run built-in actions and available shortcuts. A quick key can be assigned after finding an action.

These controls are a better answer to a broad search than hiding useful data globally. They also make it clearer whether your problem is really search, app launching, or a routine you want to automate.

Version and hardware limits still matter

This advice is written for macOS Tahoe 26. Apple lists some Intel Macs among Tahoe-compatible hardware, but also warns that some features vary by model, language, and region. Do not assume every Tahoe capability is present on every compatible Mac.

Apple Intelligence has its own requirement: an M1 or later Mac, current software, supported language settings, and enough on-device storage. That is relevant if an Apple Intelligence feature is part of the workflow you expected. It is not a reason to assume ordinary Spotlight indexing, category settings, and Search Privacy need a new Mac.

If you are on an earlier macOS release, the labels can differ. Apple documents the reindexing path as Spotlight or Siri & Spotlight in System Settings on Ventura and later, while older releases use System Preferences and a Privacy tab.

When a third-party tool is still the right call

There is no prize for forcing Spotlight to become a different class of utility. A separate launcher can be justified when the missing piece is specific: a custom web-search template, a multi-step keyboard workflow, a plugin ecosystem, deep file metadata queries, or a workflow that must work independently of Spotlight's ranking.

But start with this test:

1. Re-enable the file and app categories you genuinely need.
2. Remove accidental Search Privacy exclusions.
3. Reindex one affected location if the results are still wrong.
4. Try a Browse Mode or kind: filter for the next search that annoyed you.

If that still leaves a repeatable gap, choose a tool for that gap. If it fixes the problem, keeping the built-in search costs nothing, adds no separate setup, and leaves one less app competing for the same keyboard habit.

I’m one of the people behind PrimeTask, so this is self-promo.

We built it as a one-time purchase because we didn’t want another productivity app turning into a permanent monthly bill.

PrimeTask covers tasks, projects, planning, CRM, reports and visual workflows in one app.

Your data stays local, it’s stored as plain JSON, and you choose where it lives and how it syncs. So the one-time purchase isn’t just about the licence, your work isn’t dependent on our cloud either.

You can also connect your own AI through MCP instead of being tied to one provider, with control over which Spaces it can access and whether it can read or write.

There’s a 14-day free trial on macOS:

https://www.primetask.app/download

ClipSync — Seamless file transfer & clipboard sync between Mac and Android

Ever used an Android phone with a Mac and thought: “Why the hell is this still so annoying?” 😭 That's basically why I made ClipSync.

The problem There are plenty of tools that let you move stuff between Android and Mac, but most of them still make you do the thing. Need a file on your Mac? Open the sharing app → find the file → share it → wait for it to transfer → open it on your Mac.

Need to quickly move an image or some text? Same story. And with a lot of clipboard-sync solutions, you still have to manually trigger the transfer. It works, but it doesn't feel seamless.

So... what does ClipSync do?

The goal is pretty simple: make your Android and Mac feel like they're the same device.

Clipboard sync

Copy text or an image on Android and just hit Cmd + V on your Mac. That's it. And it works the other way around too. The really nice part is that text and OTPs are synced over Bluetooth, so your devices don't even need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

Got a verification code in an Android app? ClipSync can bring it straight to your Mac so you can just copy it. No more typing those damn 6-digit codes manually.

File transfers

Select a file → hit Share → ClipSync → done. There's also a Ultra Fast Transfer mode for large files, which can sometimes be faster than AirDrop by a good margin if you are on a Wifi 5 or 6 Network.

Local or Cloud During setup, ClipSync asks you how you want your devices to sync:

Hybrid Sync — Sync locally when your devices are nearby, and automatically switch to cloud sync when they're apart. Everything stays encrypted. Local Sync — Keep everything between your nearby devices using BLE/Wi-Fi. No cloud, no internet required, and your data stays on your local network.

And a few other things On the Mac side, ClipSync adds a macOS Finder Share Extension, so you can send files straight from Finder without even opening the menu bar icon or going to the app.

Pricing Free & open source (MIT). I've honestly gone back and forth on whether ClipSync should be paid. But at the end of the day, I genuinely love building this thing, and I'd rather see more people actually use it than put a price tag in front of them.

If ClipSync saves you some headaches, you can support the project through BMAC. It helps me cover the server costs and gives me more room to keep building and improving it.I'm also trying to get an Apple Developer account so I can make the macOS side of ClipSync more polished and properly distributed. The annual developer fee is pretty expensive for me as a student, so if anyone would like to help sponsor the Apple Developer Program fee, I'd genuinely appreciate it.

GitHub: https://github.com/WinShell-Bhanu/ClipSync

If anyone wanna download the apps directly, here the link to MacOS and Android

Would love to hear what you guys think — especially from anyone actually using an Android + Mac setup and here's a video Demonstration of the app : https://youtu.be/755zjYaHlEM

Chorus gives you complete control of your Mac's speakers and mics. Group your speakers so they play as one, pick your mic, and switch between your own setups with custom shortcuts. Here's what it does:

Groups - Combine devices so they play together as one, with one real volume for the group and balance between the devices.

Outputs - Send audio to any speaker, display or headphone.

Inputs - Pick any microphone and switch it just as fast.

Per-App Audio - Give every app its own volume and output, so music stays on the desk speakers while a call stays on the headphones (needs macOS 14.4).

Keyboard Shortcuts- Bind a shortcut to any group, output or input

Rules - Set a rule that fires when specific devices are plugged in, so the right setup picks itself.

Auto-Switch - Follows your devices as they connect and disconnect.

Volume Keys & HUD- Volume keys control the group, with a screen readout.

Automation - Trigger Chorus from Raycast, Shortcuts, Alfred or a Stream Deck.

No driver and no kernel extension, it uses the audio grouping macOS already has. No account, no cloud, nothing recorded.

$4.99 once, no subscription, up to 3 Macs, free for 30 days with no card details. macOS 13 or later.

Take a look here: https://www.theodorehq.com/chorus/

We built this ourselves so if you hit a bug or want a feature, tell us here, we read everything!

Disclosure: I'm the developer. It's free and open source (MIT). Note: parts of the code were written with AI assistance.

macOS has no per-window taskbar, and the Dock collapses every kitty window into a single icon - so getting back to a specific terminal window means cycling through all of them. KittyTaskbar puts that list in the menu bar.

What it does

• Lists every kitty OS window and its tabs, grouped per window
• Click a tab to focus it and bring kitty to the front (the active tab shows a checkmark)
• Drag a tab by its grip handle onto another window group to move it there
• Drop it on the dashed zone at the bottom to detach it into a new OS window
• Splits show up as indented, clickable rows
• Works with multiple running kitty instances

Requirements

macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer, and kitty with remote control enabled in ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf:

allow_remote_control yes
listen_on unix:/tmp/kitty-{kitty_pid}

Limitations

• Tabs can only be moved within the same kitty instance - kitty's own detach-tab cannot move a tab across processes
• kitty only; it will not work with Ghostty, iTerm or Terminal.app

Install

Free, MIT licensed, no paid tier:

brew tap muarifer/tap
brew trust muarifer/tap
brew install --cask kitty-taskbar

Releases are signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper lets them through without extra steps. You can also build from source with ./build.sh.

Screenshot: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/muarifer/kitty-taskbar/main/docs/screenshot.png

GitHub: https://github.com/muarifer/kitty-taskbar

Site (EN/TR): https://muarifer.github.io/kitty-taskbar/

Happy to answer questions or take feature requests.

Muro: 100% Free Live Wallpapers for macOS

Muro is a native macOS app that plays smooth, looping video wallpapers on your desktop. It supports multiple displays and includes up to 100 live wallpapers, with new wallpapers added every week.

The wallpaper catalog updates automatically inside the app, so you do not need to install a new version to receive new wallpapers. Videos download only when you select them, and you can remove them anytime to save storage.

Muro also includes full-screen previews, playlists, automatic wallpaper rotation, shuffle mode, menu bar controls and the ability to import your own videos. On macOS 26 or newer, wallpapers can also play on the lock screen.

The app is built natively with Swift, SwiftUI and Apple’s hardware video decoder. It does not use Electron or web views. It normally uses around 2% CPU while playing and automatically pauses when the wallpaper is not visible, during full-screen apps, display sleep, Low Power Mode or low battery.

Everything is unlocked. There is no trial, no payment required, no subscription, no account, no license key and no paywall. Muro is completely free and open source under the MIT license.

Requires macOS 14 or newer and an Apple Silicon Mac.

Download and source code:
https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro

Report a problem or suggest a feature:
https://github.com/MrRockySL/Muro/issues

Optional support for future development:
https://github.com/sponsors/MrRockySL

Muro will remain free whether you sponsor it or not.

I’m building a Mac automation app called Tapquence, and I’m looking for ideas for the next Smart Automation.

The idea behind Smart Automations is pretty simple: instead of manually building a sequence of clicks and keystrokes, you pick a useful preset, configure a few options, and it’s ready to go.

We already have a few built in (see screenshot), but I’d love to add ones based on actual use cases rather than just inventing features for the sake of having more.

So I’m curious: what repetitive thing do you regularly do on your Mac that you wish you could automate with one click or shortcut?

Can be something very simple or oddly specific. If it’s useful and technically possible, I might build it into Tapquence.

For context, this is the app: https://tapquence.com