An infinite desktop for your Mac: windows that scroll
What if your desktop were wider than your screen and you scrolled across it? How an infinite canvas for windows works on a Mac, and why it calms things down.
Your screen is a fixed size, and so is a sheet of paper. A long scroll is not. An infinite desktop treats your windows like a long scroll you move along.
How it works
Windows sit side by side on a strip that runs past both edges of the screen. The screen is a window onto part of the strip. Opening an app adds to the strip instead of crowding the screen.
What it changes
- Every window keeps the size you gave it.
- Windows keep their order, so you find them by place.
- There is nothing to tidy: the layout tidies itself.
On a Mac
ClutterFreeMac is that strip for macOS. Swipe with three or four fingers and the whole row follows your fingers; the strip map at the top shows where you are, and the strip dock at the bottom shows every window on it. Try it in the live demo.
Questions
Can a Mac desktop be bigger than the screen?
Not in macOS itself. A scrolling window manager gives you a strip of windows wider than the screen that you move along.
Read next
- Guide
What is a scrolling window manager?
A scrolling window manager lays windows side by side on a strip wider than your screen. How it differs from overlapping and grid tiling, and who it suits.
Read › - Guide
Scrolling vs tiling window managers: which suits you?
Tiling splits one screen between all your windows. Scrolling gives each window its width and lets the row grow. How they differ, and who each one suits.
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The best window managers for Mac, by how you work
Snapping, grid tiling, scrolling or Stage Manager: which kind of Mac window manager fits how you work, and the well known options in each group.
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