How to get Windows 11 snap layouts on a Mac

Updated 2026-09-11 · 5 min read · by Okie Dockie

What macOS gives you natively

Apple added window tiling in macOS 15 Sequoia, and it is a genuine improvement on the decades of nothing that preceded it. Drag a window to the left or right edge and it takes half the screen. Drag into a corner for a quarter. There is a Window menu with Move & Resize commands, and Fn-based shortcuts.

Older versions have Split View, reached by holding the green traffic-light button. It forces both windows into a full-screen Space, hides the Dock and menu bar, and locks you to exactly two windows. Most people try it once.

What Windows 11 does that macOS does not

Snap Layouts on Windows 11 is a different interaction, not just a different set of sizes. Drag a window to the top of the screen, or hover the maximise button, and you get a chooser: a grid of possible layouts. Pick one, the window takes that slot, and then Windows offers your other open windows to fill the remaining slots — Snap Assist. In three clicks the whole screen is arranged.

Three things are missing from the macOS version:

• No layout chooser. You must know in advance which edge or corner produces which shape. There is nothing to look at and pick from.
• No thirds. On a 27-inch or ultrawide display, halves waste enormous space. Three columns is the layout that display was bought for, and macOS cannot do it.
• No assist. Snapping one window gives you one window and an empty space beside it. You go and fetch each remaining window yourself.

Getting real snap layouts

This is what we built into Okie Dockie, deliberately as the Windows interaction rather than a set of keyboard shortcuts:

1. Drag any window towards the top of the screen.
2. A layout chooser appears. Pick a shape.
3. The window snaps into the slot you dropped it on, and the remaining slots offer your other open windows. Click to fill them.

Rectangle (free, open source) and Magnet (paid) are other window managers for the Mac, built around keyboard shortcuts and dragging to screen edges. Okie Dockie's approach is a Windows 11-style layout chooser that then offers windows for the remaining slots.

The layouts worth having

• Two side by side. The default for everything. Editor and browser, document and reference.
• Three columns. The reason to own a wide monitor. Chat, work, reference — all readable at once.
• One left, two stacked right. The best layout nobody talks about: your main window gets real space, with two secondary ones visible above and below beside it.
• Four quadrants. Monitoring, dashboards, anything you watch rather than read.
• Four columns. Only sensible on an ultrawide, and unbeatable there.

Okie Dockie ships all five. They are part of the free version — there is nothing to pay for window management.

Keyboard shortcuts

Dragging is discoverable; keys are faster once you know them. Every layout slot has a shortcut, so a two-window arrangement is two keystrokes without touching the mouse. If you are coming from Windows, the muscle memory of Win+arrow maps onto the same idea.

Snap layouts pair naturally with click-through window focus: once your windows are tiled, being able to click straight into the one under your pointer without a focusing click first is what makes a tiled screen feel quick rather than fiddly.