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Yabai

Yabai is an open-source tiling window manager for macOS that provides advanced window management, customizations and optimizations for power users. It aims to bring the speed and workflow improvements from tiling window managers on Linux to macOS.

What is Yabai?

Yabai is an open-source, lightweight tiling window manager for macOS that is designed to provide an efficient and customizable workflow for power users. It brings many of the advanced window management features found in tiling window managers for Linux, like i3 and bspwm, to macOS.

Some of the key features of Yabai include:

  • Keyboard-driven window tiling and navigation
  • Customizable workspaces
  • Window splitting
  • Window floating and resizing
  • Configuration via plaintext file
  • Scripting support

By leveraging macOS's underlying window management architecture and implementing additional logic on top, Yabai enables very fast and fluid window movement and organization. Users can quickly snap windows to preset grid layouts and workspaces, focus windows with custom keyboard shortcuts, and script complex window arrangements.

The goal of Yabai is not necessarily to replicate the entire Linux tiling window manager experience on macOS, but rather to enable greater speed, control and customization over window workflows for power users and developers. It aims to help them be more productive by reducing mouse usage and streamlining window placement/navigation.

The Best Yabai Alternatives

Top Apps like Yabai

Spectacle, Rectangle, i3, AquaSnap, Divvy, Sway, Hyprland, Cinch, Shiftit, Mosaic Window Manager, Openbox, VEEER, Light Pillar Mosaic, Tuck, Xmonad, Optimal Layout, bspwm, Deskovery, WindowTidy, river (Wayland compositor), Snap Assist, MultiDock, Qtile, i3-gaps, Fluxbox, chunkwm, Windawesome, WMFS², Cisdem WindowManager, Keypad Layout are some alternatives to Yabai.

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Tuck

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Xmonad

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Optimal Layout

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Bspwm

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Deskovery

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WindowTidy

WindowTidy is a powerful system optimization and privacy enhancement utility for Windows designed to clean, optimize, and secure your PC. It bundles numerous optimization features into one easy-to-use program to improve system performance, free up disk space, protect privacy, and enhance security.Key features of WindowTidy include:Disk Cleanup -...

River (Wayland compositor)

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Snap Assist

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Qtile

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I3-gaps

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Fluxbox

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Chunkwm

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WMFS²

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