Managing Mac windows across two different setups with Rectangle

I work from home, but I don’t always work from the same place.

Most of the time, I work at my desk with an external monitor and keep my MacBook in clamshell mode. In the early mornings, I sometimes take my MacBook to the living room and use it as a laptop. Later in the afternoon, when the sun starts shining through the window near my desk, I may take it to one of my kids’ rooms instead.

These setups require different window arrangements. When I use my MacBook as a laptop, I hide the Dock and resize windows to fill the available screen. When I return to my external monitor, I show the Dock again, center the windows, and resize them to occupy around two-thirds of the screen.

Every time I move between these setups, I rearrange the windows manually. I’ve been doing this almost every day for the last four years.

I knew that window managers existed, but for some reason, I was always too lazy to try one.

What Rectangle does

Rectangle is a window manager.

A window manager is an app that helps you arrange open windows on your screen. Instead of dragging every window and resizing it manually, you can use a keyboard shortcut or drag it to a snap area to place it in a predefined position.

For example, you can make a window fill the screen, move it to the left or right half, or place it in the center with a specific size. This is useful if you work with several apps at once or regularly switch between different displays.

Rectangle provides shortcuts and snap areas for all these actions. It offers many different window positions, although I only need a few of them for my setup.

Rectangle is available in free and Pro versions. The free version provides shortcuts and snap areas for moving and resizing windows. Rectangle Pro adds more advanced features, including layouts that can be activated when an external display is connected or disconnected. This sounded like it could solve my problem automatically, so I decided to try it.

My external monitor setup

I use a 27-inch external monitor. I don’t like windows to fill the entire screen horizontally. Instead, I resize them to take about two-thirds of the screen and place them in the center, leaving some unused space on both sides.

This still gives me enough room to use apps comfortably. I also like being able to see the wallpaper on the left and right sides of the window.

Before using Rectangle, I resized and centered every window manually. Now I can do the same thing by pressing the ⌃⌥R shortcut.

Rectangle also lets me resize windows by dragging them into snap areas, but I prefer using the keyboard.

My MacBook setup

When I open my MacBook and switch back to its built-in display, macOS automatically resizes the open windows to fit the smaller screen.

I then hide the Dock using the ⌥⌘D shortcut. Because the windows were resized while the Dock was still visible, this leaves an empty space at the bottom of the screen.

Before using Rectangle, I dragged the bottom edge of each window down to fill this space. Now I can select a window and press ⌃⌥ ↵ to make it fill all the available desktop space.

I still need to repeat the shortcut for each window, but it is much quicker than resizing them manually.

Trying to automate the switch with Rectangle Pro

Rectangle Pro includes a feature called Layouts. A layout stores the positions and sizes of your Mac windows so you can restore the entire arrangement later.

You can create a layout by defining a position for each app manually or by capturing the current layout of your open windows. A layout can then be applied with a keyboard shortcut or triggered by events like connecting or disconnecting an external monitor, or by waking up the laptop.

I created two layouts. One contained the layout I use with my external monitor, while the other contained the layout I use on my MacBook’s built-in display.

The layout switching worked as expected, but Rectangle Pro couldn’t automate my entire setup. I keep the Dock visible on my external monitor and hide it when I use my MacBook as a laptop. Rectangle Pro changed the window sizes and positions, but it didn’t change the Dock visibility.

When I hid the Dock after switching to the MacBook display, an empty space appeared below the windows again because the layout was applied while the Dock was still visible.

Fortunately, Rectangle Pro lets me assign a shortcut to each layout. Instead of applying them automatically, I can first show or hide the Dock and then restore the correct layout with a shortcut.

It’s not completely automatic, but it works. If Rectangle Pro could also control the Dock visibility as part of a layout, it would handle the entire switch for me.

What else Rectangle offers

My setup uses only a small part of what Rectangle offers.

In addition to making a window occupy two-thirds of the screen or fill the entire desktop, the free version includes more than 30 window sizes, positions, and other actions.

I found a few shortcuts that I may use in the future. I can center a window with ⌃⌥C, make it fill the screen vertically with ⌃⌥⇧↑, or make it larger with ⌃⌥= and smaller with ⌃⌥-.

If you don’t want to remember all the shortcuts, you can configure up to eight snap areas. Dragging a window to one of these areas resizes and positions it for you.

Rectangle Pro also includes Quick Throw. Instead of dragging a window to the edge of the desktop, you can hold ⌃⌘ and move the pointer to one of the available areas. Rectangle then moves the window to the size and position assigned to that area.

Pro also includes the Layouts I described earlier. If none of Rectangle’s predefined actions match what you need, you can create your own window sizes and positions as well.

These were the additional features that interested me most. You can find the complete list in Rectangle’s official comparison table.

Is Rectangle useful for my setup?

For me, the answer is yes. Rectangle didn’t completely automate switching between my two setups, but it made the process much faster.

Before using Rectangle, I resized every window manually with the mouse. Now I can arrange an individual window with a shortcut or restore several windows together with a Rectangle Pro layout. I still need to show or hide the Dock myself, but this takes much less effort than my old routine.

The free version is enough if you only need shortcuts and snap areas for arranging individual windows. Rectangle Pro is more useful if you want custom window positions, Layouts, Quick Throw, or other advanced features.

I decided to buy a Rectangle Pro license for €9.99 because Layouts let me restore all my windows at once. As an indie developer myself, I also like supporting other indie developers.

Rectangle solves a small problem, but it’s one I encountered almost every day. After four years of arranging windows manually, I probably should have tried a window manager sooner.

You can download Rectangle from its official website.