Contents
Stage Manager reserves width
With Stage Manager on, a strip along the left is reserved for the window stack. A maximised window legitimately does not reach the left edge, which is reported as a bug more often than almost anything else.
The reserved width defaults to 190 and can be set explicitly, in pixels or as a fraction of screen width:
# reserve 220 pixels
defaults write com.knollsoft.Rectangle stageSize -float 220
# or 12% of the screen's width
defaults write com.knollsoft.Rectangle stageSize -float 0.12
killall Rectangle && open -a RectangleA reserved strip with the stack hidden looks exactly like a display-detection fault. System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Stage Manager. People who tried it once and forgot spend a surprising amount of time debugging the consequence.
Whether to use it at all is a genuine question rather than a foregone conclusion. Stage Manager and a keyboard-driven window manager are two answers to the same problem — too many windows — and they pull in opposite directions. Stage Manager hides windows to reduce clutter; tiling arranges them so all are visible. Running both means paying the screen-space cost of one while getting the philosophy of the other.
Native tiling claims the drag gesture
Recent macOS versions tile a window dragged to a screen edge. Two systems watching the same gesture produce doubled snapping, a visible flicker, or a window that ends up somewhere neither intended.
There is no clever reconciliation. Pick one owner:
| Approach | How | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| System owns drags, app owns keyboard | Disable snap areas in the app; keep shortcuts | Keyboard-first users — the cleanest split |
| App owns everything | Turn off tiling in System Settings → Desktop & Dock | People who want thirds and sixths by dragging |
| System owns everything | Uninstall the third-party tool | Anyone who only ever needs halves and quarters |
The first row deserves emphasis because it is under-appreciated: keyboard shortcuts do not conflict with native tiling at all. If you never drag windows anyway, you can leave the system feature fully enabled, disable snap areas entirely, and have zero conflict while keeping thirds, sixths, cycling and every hidden command.
# keep only the keyboard: disable every snap region
defaults write com.knollsoft.Rectangle ignoredSnapAreas -int 4095
killall Rectangle && open -a RectangleWhere the built-in feature still falls short
| Capability | Built-in tiling | Dedicated app |
|---|---|---|
| Halves and quarters | Yes | Yes |
| Thirds and two-thirds | No | Yes |
| Sixths, eighths, ninths | No | Yes |
| Cycling on repeated press | No | Yes |
| Exact restore of previous geometry | Limited | Yes |
| Keyboard move between displays | Limited | Yes |
| Configurable gaps and edge reservations | On or off | Precise values |
| Custom shortcut scheme | Limited | Full |
| Bulk tile and cascade | No | Yes, hidden |
The row that decides it for most people is thirds. On any display larger than a laptop panel, three columns is frequently the correct division, and the built-in feature cannot produce it at all.
Tiled window margins
macOS tiling applies its own margin between tiled windows, and it has a setting of its own. If you also configure gaps in the window manager, windows arranged by different means end up with different spacing, which looks inconsistent for no obvious reason.
Set a margin in one place only. Either turn off the system's tiled-window margin and use the app's gap setting, or the reverse. Mixing them is the source of the complaint that gaps are inconsistent between windows.
Full screen and Spaces
Worth restating because it explains a whole category of confusion: native full screen moves an application into its own Space. It is no longer an ordinary window, so no window manager — third-party or built-in — can position it. This is why menu items grey out for a full-screen app.
If you want the appearance of full screen while keeping the window snappable, use the maximise command instead. It fills the display, stays in the current Space, remains switchable with Cmd-Tab and can be restored to its previous geometry in one keystroke.
Get the current build
Rectangle is free and open source. Everything documented here works in the standard build.
Download from rectangleapp.comQuestions
Why does maximise not reach the left edge?
Stage Manager is reserving space. Set stageSize explicitly, or turn Stage Manager off.
Do I have to disable native tiling?
No. Give it the drag gestures and keep the keyboard shortcuts for the third-party tool — they do not conflict.
Which offers more?
The dedicated tool, by a wide margin: thirds, sixths, cycling, bulk commands and precise gaps are all absent from the built-in feature.
Can I position a full-screen app?
No. It occupies its own Space. Use maximise instead.