How to tile windows on a Mac, with and without an app

Since macOS 15 Sequoia, the Mac can tile windows on its own. Before that you needed an app. Here is what the built in tiling does, and where a window manager takes over.

Tile with the mouse

1. Drag a window by its title bar to the left or right edge of the screen to fill that half.
2. Drag it to a corner to fill a quarter.
3. Drag it to the top edge to fill the screen.
4. Or hover over the green button at the top left of the window and choose an arrangement from the menu.

Tile with the keyboard

Choose Window > Move & Resize in almost any app to see the options and their shortcuts. The common ones use the Globe key (fn) with Control:

Settings worth knowing

Open System Settings > Desktop & Dock and scroll to Windows. There you can turn off dragging to edges, remove the margins between tiled windows, or make tiling happen only while you hold Option.

Where built in tiling stops

• It arranges the windows you place, one at a time. A new window still opens on top of whatever is there.
• Two halves or four quarters is the limit. A third window means something gets covered.
• It does not remember your layout after a restart.

When to use a window manager

If you only ever want two windows side by side, the built in tiling is enough. If you work with five or ten windows at once, a window manager does the arranging for you. ClutterFreeMac places every window on a strip that scrolls, so the third, fourth and tenth window each get a full sized place of their own. See what a scrolling window manager is.