AeroSpace is an i3-like tiling window manager for macOS

I daily drive this and my verdict is: it's the best way to manage windows on a Mac, but falls short of i3/sway. In particular, support for re-arranging windows by dragging them to positions relative to one another is extremely limited in that it's not able to create new vertical or horizontal splits the way you can in sway, which forces me to take awkward detours with keyboard commands to get to the window layout I want most of the time. Like, say I have two windows side-by-side, and I want to split one of them vertically. In sway I'd pop open the new window, then drag it to the top or bottom half of the window I want it to share horizontal space with, and bam, all done. With aerospace the best way I've found to do this is to open the new window, then switch all three windows into a vertical stack, then focus the window that was originally on the left and invoke the 'move left' command on it.

&gt; Doesn&#x27;t require disabling SIP<p>That&#x27;s very interesting! I&#x27;ve been hesitant to use similar WMs as basically all required disabling SIP. Anyone knows what AeroSpace is doing differently that it can work alongside SIP?<p>Edit: found this in the README:<p>&gt; AeroSpace will never require you to disable SIP (System Integrity Protection). For example, yabai requires you to disable SIP to use some of its features. AeroSpace will either find another way (such as emulation of workspaces) or will not implement this feature at all (window transparency and window shadowing are not practical features)

This is great! I&#x27;ve been using Amethyst so far, but I immediately liked Aerospace more. The main gripe I have with Amethyst is that it throws windows in a very sluggish and unreliable fashion. With Aerospace, windows get moved to different workspaces&#x2F;monitors in a flash and the move never fails. I also like how it completely ditches MacOS built-in workspaces, which, as the author argued, is rather unsatisfactory, in favor of its own virtual workspace solution, which finally makes handling a multi-monitor setup a bearable and even somewhat enjoyable experience.<p>(I couldn&#x27;t use yabai on my work computer as it requires disabling SIP, which the author of Aerospace explicitly argues against, which I find reasonable.)<p>Actually, in my Linux days I moved from i3 (which Aerospace is based on) to xmonad (which Amethyst is based on), but on MacOS Aerospace just feels quite better. None of the 3 WMs on MacOS comes close to what a true WM on Linux can offer, but I guess Aerospace is as good as it can get.

Oh, I like the fake Spaces approach.<p>I have considered trying that by minimizing windows, but would never get around to it.<p>Tiling is doomed to sadness on macOS, because of lack of APIs. But this is probably the most performant approach.<p>Have used yabai, but only for moving windows and focus-follows-mouse. Not for tiling. Because flaky (not yabai’s fault).<p>Thanks nikitabobko.<p>Looking forward to trying it as soon as I figure out how to mod alt-tab to ignore all the windows (from every fake workspace) in the corner.<p>Also, linked in the docs, JankyBorders. Nice.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;koekeishiya&#x2F;yabai">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;koekeishiya&#x2F;yabai</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;lwouis&#x2F;alt-tab-macos">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;lwouis&#x2F;alt-tab-macos</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;FelixKratz&#x2F;JankyBorders">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;FelixKratz&#x2F;JankyBorders</a>

I have gotten somewhat used to Raycast&#x27;s window management tools, and it is not really possible to use them with AeroSpace.<p>For example, with Raycast I can resize and float a window using &quot;reasonable size&quot; option, which also puts it in the middle. I can use left half and right half to create a split, or I can maximise a window or even use quarters or thirds. With AeroSpace, trrying to move the windows in the tiles using left half, right half, or left two thirds or using reasonable size to float the windows, it doesn&#x27;t work.<p>Also, there are bugs associated with moving apps to &quot;next desktop&quot; and &quot;previous desktop&quot;. AeroSpace seems to have its own implementation of Mac&#x27;s multiple desktops called workspaces, so the video guide actually doesn&#x27;t show transitioning between different desktops, but different workspaces. As a result, using &quot;next desktop&quot; and &quot;previous desktop&quot; completely breaks the tiling. I would&#x27;ve liked Workspaces to just be associated directly with the different Mac desktops so that the movement between workspaces just moves to the different desktops so there is some compatibility with Raycast and native MacOS.

I use yabai pretty heavily, for the past 5 macos versions without disabling SIP on a work computer. I really like it, the tiling is flaky only maybe once every few days (I am doing yabai commands probably once a minute at least) so I bound a keystroke to `yabai --restart-service` and it always comes back immediately<p>So I find it really pretty reliable and pretty great. Multimonitor is hard and I don&#x27;t use it much, but having stacks and fast &#x27;full-screen&#x27; to minimize is so great<p>On some version upgrades, work antivirus thinks it&#x27;s a virus so disables it for 24 hours, and I hate using my computer those days, it feels so clunky and sad

I have been trying this for a few months now. I3 is quite perfect and Aerospace is a nice try, but it’s very far from i3; it’s quite flaky. I guess this is because Mac OS X doesn’t actually allow full control like Unix WMs do?<p>I have not found anything better though, but I will install Linux when it’s working well on Apple Silicon. Only i3 is at least for me enough reason to use Linux as Mac OS X, again imho, is terrible window manager wise.

What is the difference in user experience between this and Yabai? I don’t think the SIP issues for Yabai is a big one, no one I know who uses Yabai disables SIP, and they seem to enjoy it.<p>Is the i3 stuff the difference?<p>Personally I use a utility that allows resizing and moving windows with the mouse from anywhere on the window when holding a modifier combination, like Fluxbox. Not as automatic, but also never flaky - more like making floating much easier with less mouse movement than moving to a totally managed style.

I&#x27;d be curious to know how it is different than Amethyst. Amethyst has gotten much more stable recently and I really enjoy using it. The text based config seems pretty nice at a first glance, but I&#x27;m not sure if it&#x27;s worth switching.

I’ve been using this for the past few months, and for the most part, I like it. I appreciate that it’s all configured with a single file (no GUI).<p>One issue: If an app uses native Mac tabs, Aerospace treats each tab as a window, which completely breaks the full screen functionality. Alacritty is one example. It’s really odd.<p>Edit: there’s an open issue for this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;nikitabobko&#x2F;AeroSpace&#x2F;issues&#x2F;68">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;nikitabobko&#x2F;AeroSpace&#x2F;issues&#x2F;68</a>

Nice to see another twm on macOS.<p>Somehow over the past few years Windows became the more vibrant platform for twms (vs macOS) with developers (including myself) trying to push the envelope and introduce many quality of life features you still won&#x27;t find even in Linux twms today.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;LGUG2Z&#x2F;komorebi">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;LGUG2Z&#x2F;komorebi</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;glzr-io&#x2F;glazewm">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;glzr-io&#x2F;glazewm</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dalyIsaac&#x2F;Whim">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dalyIsaac&#x2F;Whim</a><p>Hopefully this new entrant will drive even more innovation in this space on macOS.

I&#x27;m reluctant to try this -- my experience with other attempts to try out tiling window managers on MacOS is that the just don&#x27;t play nice. Windows get repositioned by normal interactions and the window manager is not able to wrangle them, and connecting external monitors is a disaster, and you end up with a situation where windows are overlapping in odd ways but you can&#x27;t move them out of the way because the window manager is trying to manage them.<p>Does anyone have experience with this particular one and does it resolve these sorts of issues?

This is great! I find the one thing I miss the most from i3 that none of the macOS tiling managers seem to have is i3bar, or a minimal bar that displays what space I&#x27;m on, how many spaces I have, cpu&#x2F;ram usage, etc. I&#x27;ve tried to find configs that emulate this with Spacebar [0], but haven&#x27;t been able to find anything<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;cmacrae&#x2F;spacebar">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;cmacrae&#x2F;spacebar</a>

I have been using Yabai for almost 1 year now. I had learned to live with the transition between workspaces because I cant disable SIP.<p>I just tried this. I love it. No SPI and no transitions, just fast switching of apps. I will probably switch to this.<p>Thank you for your work!!

Can we stop pissing and moaning about notarization? macOS isn’t Linux and this isn’t 1994. Given the cybersecurity threats of the world today, signing by a central authority makes some amount of sense for apps on consumer OSes.

I hope I&#x27;m not too late to this thread, but I have a couple comments and a question.<p>The experience is better than Amethyst or Yabai, but there is a learning curve. I think it would help if the documentation was one single searchable page, instead of several subpages.<p>The default keybindings interfere with macOS&#x27;s special characters, so I would recommend changing the modifier keys away from option+ and option+shift+.<p>One thing I couldn&#x27;t figure out. My setup is as follows:<p><pre><code> h_tiles └── v_accordion ├── window1 └── window2 └── v_accordion ├── window1 └── window2 </code></pre> I would like to limit the total number of horizontal tiles--more than two is too many--but I can&#x27;t figure out how to make new windows automatically go into either accordion stack instead of a new horizontal tile. Is there a way to set mins and maxes per tree level? This is one of those features that Amethyst has that seems like a no-brainer.

I have used both aerospace and yabai, and aerospace was far more simpler to configure. I really like it. Thank you for the great work!<p>I had to unfortunately stop using aerospace due to some bugs. If I switch from workspace a to workspace b, sometimes aerospace keeps switching back to workspace a. It is annoying when you are trying to press the unmute button in the middle of a call but aerospace keeps taking you away from that workspace. The root cause could be that the apps that I use (internal tools) are misbehaving. I&#x27;ll file a bug report if I can reproduce it on my personal mac.

Is it possible to display the current layout tree (of the current workspace)?<p>As I&#x27;m learning to use this, I&#x27;m having trouble conceptualizing how my windows are organized in the tree, and how I&#x27;m affecting it.

For folks that use the tiling window managers, what applications are you running? And what does a typical desktop look like?<p>In terms of desktop layout, mind I don&#x27;t use one, the Oberon vision comes to mind. A single, large pane, with all(?) of the others stacked to one side.<p>My friend didn&#x27;t use a tiling window manager, but had this desktop laid out as such, but all of those windows were terminal windows that he kept an eye on (he was our ops guy).<p>But are folks using these layouts with their web browsers, word processors, IDEs, etc.?

I’ve just started using [1Piece](<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;app1piece.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;app1piece.com&#x2F;</a>). Before this, I had BetterTouchTools just to mimick the window snapping. And years prior to that, I’d run a full dwm setup on Linux. The thing to understand however… is that these sort of things are a losing battle on macOS. Stuff like yabai&#x2F;skhd break in between OS updates. Window management and apple is a battle you can always expect to lsoe

This looks very interesting. However, how do I create a new container, to put a subset of windows in?<p>It&#x27;s not clear to me from the example configs, either default or i3-inspired. I&#x27;ve never used i3, though I did use AwesomeWM extensively about a decade ago.<p>Edit: ah, the `join-with` command which is a superset of the `split` command. In the default config, alt-shift-semicolon to enter Service mode, then alt-shift-h&#x2F;j&#x2F;k&#x2F;l for neighbor selection.

Cool, but I&#x27;d first have to be sold on tiling managers being a good idea in the first place. I like to imagine my desktop as well.. my physical desktop. It&#x27;s got papers on it, books, it&#x27;s all overlapping and I usually put the stuff I am working on in the center. That&#x27;s the issue with tiling managers for me - it introduces a structure where you probably don&#x27;t need it.

Is there any documentation for very beginners on how a regular workflow would be? Like, if I have 7 windows opened, how do I start organizing them with just shortkeys? I&#x27;ve found option+&#x2F; to put all of them horizontally or vertically (alternating when pressing twice), but not sure how to quickly make 1 of them bigger or select just 2.

Nice!! I&#x27;m going to have to play with this. Now what I really want to see, and I&#x27;m surprised doesn&#x27;t exist, is an addon for or replacement to Spotlight that works like dmenu in that I can write scripts which use it for input like:<p><pre><code> printf &#x27;one\ntwo\nthree&#x27; | dmenu -l 3 -p &quot;Which one? &quot; </code></pre> I use that in so many scripts on my main machines and would love to share them with macOS folks. I&#x27;m really surprised its not in something like Alfred.<p>Maybe it exits and I don&#x27;t know about it?? If not, maybe someone will add it to this open source Spotlight replacement I found: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;techrisdev&#x2F;Snap">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;techrisdev&#x2F;Snap</a>

I use AutoFocus which gives focus-follows-mouse with AeroSpace and its a good enough replacement for i3wm.<p>Extremely thankful for both projects.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;synappser&#x2F;AutoFocus">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;synappser&#x2F;AutoFocus</a>

I use yabai and my favorite feature is being able to switch between mostly recently used spaces with a shortcut. It allows me to quickly alter between editor and terminal spaces, or editor and browser, or two browser windows. This feature alone boosts my productivity so much and makes it fun to use my machine. But it required disabling SIP which I can&#x27;t do on my work machine. Does anybody know if AeroSpace can do this?

It&#x27;s like someone was thinking of me! I&#x27;ve been missing such things on Mac. Toying with Yabai and others. Love seeing work in this space.

&gt; Homebrew installation script is configured to automatically delete com.apple.quarantine attribute, that&#x27;s why the app should work out of the box, without any warnings that &quot;Apple cannot check AeroSpace for malicious software&quot;<p>Can someone ELI5 what this does? Does it impact AeroSpace only, or something globally on my Mac? Thanks!

I will be getting my first mac soon (I am still sad about it), which means I will need to figure out the WM. Currently I am considering yabai and amethyst. I guess now I should add AeroSpace to the list.<p>If you are actually using tiling WM on mac, could you share which one and why?

Is there a way to limit using the Right side Option key and spare the Left Option Key for the OS?<p>The good thing about RCMD is I can specify which specific key, consuming only 1 OPT or CMD key while saving the other key for the OS shortcuts

I’m currently in using sway on fedora, I’m considering moving to macOS because of tighter integration of icloud (everything is on my iphone) and generally better polish of the OS. This is another reason to switch

I started using this at work about a week ago. Still getting used to it, but it feels nice for managing multiple displays. Sometimes it feels limiting, but I think I&#x27;m just getting used to it.

Yabai was not working for me, Aerospace worked out of the box. Great tool

Finally…the day has come…this look awesome!!! Loved the values.

I have yet to try a tiling windows manager...but Im this close. I can&#x27;t stand always trying to find the effing window under a pile of shit.

Somewhat on subject: does anybody feel like the macos-style application menu that is disconnected from the application window has outlived its welcome? I feel like apple gets so much right from a UX perspective, but in a world of multi-monitor setups and common cross application workflows, I find it absolutely bizarre that I might have to scroll across 2+ monitors to get to a dropdown menu for an application that I&#x27;m using, and sometimes still get to a dropdown menu for the wrong application.

Cool YouTube video, but: my kingdom for a screenshot!<p>Product looks amazing. I use Divvy but will definitely try out AeroSpace. Great name too.

How does this compare to tools like Yabai? I&#x27;m pretty happy with Yabai and SketchyBar, is this any easier to use?

I used i3 for a few years when my main dev machine was Linux. I too am frustrated by the macOS builtin WM&#x27;s shortcomings. Initial feedback on AeroSpace though: it&#x27;s utter shite.<p>I started it when I already had my usual number (many) of windows open across my usual number of spaces (lots) on my usual number of displays (3). First it spent 30 seconds trying to give me a seizure, and when it had finished I&#x27;m left with a total mess of a layout. Some windows 30px wide. Some windows not-quite-fullscreen. Some windows just randomly floating without any kind of recognisable pattern.<p>Now I can&#x27;t navigate around because dragging a window sends it flying off to the corner of a different display. None of the default keybindings seem to do what they say they should. The focussed window disappeared entirely when I tried resize mode, and I can&#x27;t find the way out of it because that was the window with the instructions.<p>I think I&#x27;ll try something else.

How does RCMD + Rectangle Pro compare to AeroSpace?

Just want to say a huge thanks to the dev(s) here, you&#x27;ve basically solved my major pain points with macOS window management (especially around apple&#x27;s infuriatingly broken implementation of virtual desktops). This stuff has been gnawing away at my sanity for years

Apple needs to aquihire you immediately.

This looks so awesome I gonna dust off my mac mini.<p>As a tiling wm user (Hyprland now) I always wonder how OSX users claim they&#x27;re that productive with all those alt+tabbin&#x27; I meant cmd+tabbin&#x27;. Welcome to the 2010s guys!

Man I hate the name. Has nothing to do with aerospace, but it does seem like a fad in software to take on some stolen valor from a far more interesting field.