The best of tiling window managers for Windows, macOS and Linux

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Dec 12, 2021
Last updated: Oct 27, 2022
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Features

These are the features i want

Edge snapping (i want to be able to drag windows to rearrange+resize them. that’s faster for me than remembering different keyboard shortcut and is basically the same way on all operating systems: you drag, you drop.)
Quarters (i have 4K screens, plenty of space for me to have 1/4 or 1/6 of the screen area and still have full view of the app)
Custom layouts (i’d like creating my own custom layouts by defining and saving zones. Not everything needs to be a quarter of the screen..)

My top 3 tools for resizing and arranging windows are as follows (all of these are free):

Windows - FancyZones

I LOVE FancyZones on Windows. It’s part of the Microsoft PowerToys package and is completely free to use. Simple, powerful and easily customizable. You can create your own customized layouts and every monitor can have it’s own layout.

maxto €29

Ubuntu - Tiling Assistant

For my use case, i settled on Tiling Assistant which is a GNOME extension and not an entirely new display manager. (Ubuntu uses GNOME by default).

Tiling Assistant adds Windows like snap assist to GNOME. A user guide is available explaining mouse and keyboard based functionality

Tiling Assistant lets you split windows to quarter and lower/upper half. There are keyboard shortcuts, and edge snapping if you drag the window while pressing Ctrl

By default you get 8 zones (halves + quarters) accessible by keyboard shortcuts as well as edge snapping when dragging with mouse.

You can also setup Layouts which is the linux equivalent of Fancy Zones.

Setting it up is more complicated than

Find extension configurations under Extensions. The application is a GNOME extension and not a standalone app.

Find layout configurations by clicking the i icon in the top left of the Tiling Assistant settings window. From there click Advanced, and then enable Advanced / Experimental Settings. Now you should see a third settings tab called Layouts

Tiling Assistant find hidden settings Tiling Assistant hidden settings Tiling Assistant layouts settings

Others:

x-tile
shelltile - no longer works with GNOME 40 on Ubuntu 22.04

macOS - Rectangle

Rectangle on macOS is a no-fuss tool that is free to use and has keyboard shortcuts