Rectangle is the default recommendation for window management on a Mac, and deservedly so: free, open source, no account, no upsell in your face. It is also frequently blamed for a problem it was never built to solve. Here is what it does, what the paid version adds, and where the line actually sits.
The short answer
Install Rectangle. It is free, it is the most thoroughly documented snapper on the platform, and there is no reason to shop around before trying it. Consider Rectangle Pro if you want to reach many sizes from one key combination or keep your configuration synced across Macs. Look at a different category of tool if your real complaint is windows scrambling when your displays change, because no amount of snapping fixes that.
What Rectangle is
One line from its own site covers it: “Move and resize windows in macOS using keyboard shortcuts or snap areas”. Press a shortcut and the active window jumps to a half, a third, a corner. Drag a window to a screen edge or corner and it snaps there. It is a direct descendant of Spectacle, which it calls itself “a worthy successor” to, and it can adopt Spectacle's default shortcuts so long time users lose nothing by switching.
The detail worth knowing before you start is shortcut cycling, which the site sums up as “memorize less: repeat shortcuts to cycle through window sizes”. Instead of learning a separate shortcut per size, you press the same one repeatedly and it walks through the options. That is often the difference between window management sticking as a habit and being abandoned in week two.
| Price | Free and open source. Rectangle Pro is a separate paid app |
|---|---|
| Rectangle Pro trial | "Free for 10 days", then purchase. One licence active on 3 devices at a time |
| Minimum macOS | "macOS 10.15+, Intel and Apple Silicon" |
| Install | DMG from GitHub releases, or Homebrew |
| Free features | Keyboard shortcuts, shortcut cycling through sizes, snap areas at edges and corners, portrait display layouts |
| Pro adds | 16 sizes and positions from one key combination, snap targets and a snap panel, custom sizes and positions, workspace arrangement across multiple apps, window stashing at a screen edge, app pinning, menu bar customisation, iCloud config sync |
| Restores automatically on a display change | Free version, no. Pro, yes: its comparison page lists saving entire workspaces and restoring them "using window throw, keyboard shortcut, or on display connected". The workspace is one you save deliberately |
Free Rectangle or Rectangle Pro
Free Rectangle is not a crippled demo, which is worth saying because plenty of free tiers are. Shortcuts, shortcut cycling, snap areas and portrait layouts are all in the free app, and for most people that is the end of the decision.
Pro aims at a narrower want: reaching a lot of positions fast without memorising a lot of shortcuts. The site describes hitting 16 window sizes and positions from a single key combination, plus configurable snap targets, stashing windows at a screen edge, pinning apps to a side, and syncing your configuration through iCloud. Its own framing is that it is “not just a Rectangle upgrade”, and that is fair: it is a bigger app with a different centre of gravity.
One Pro feature deserves precision, because it is easy to over read. Pro lists arranging a workspace across multiple apps: a layout you set up, then apply. That is a genuine saved arrangement. It is not the same thing as an arrangement that comes back on its own when your monitor reconnects, and neither version documents the latter.
Alternatives to Rectangle
If you are here because Rectangle is missing something specific, the honest options split into three groups: other snappers that do the same job differently, automatic tilers that place every window for you, and restorers that solve a different problem entirely.
| Tool | Job | Price model |
|---|---|---|
| Native macOS tiling | Snapping, halves and quarters, drag to an edge | Built into macOS |
| Magnet | Snapping, bought and updated through the App Store | Paid, one time |
| Tiles | Snapping by drag, shortcut or menu bar. Runs on macOS 10.14+ | No price stated, donation link |
| Moom | Snapping plus custom grids and saved arrangements | Paid, one time |
| Amethyst | Automatic tiling, xmonad style, macOS 10.15+ | Free, MIT |
| AeroSpace | Automatic tiling, i3 style, never requires disabling SIP | Free, MIT |
| yabai | Automatic tiling, scriptable. Advanced features need SIP partly off | Free, MIT |
| Putback | Restores your layout after a display change. Does not snap | $19 once, 7 day trial |
Read from each tool's own documentation on 4 August 2026. Prices and features change, check the source before buying anything.
Reviews of the tilers individually: Amethyst, AeroSpace, yabai. Snappers: Tiles, Magnet. Head to head: Rectangle vs Magnet vs Moom, which also covers Moom against Rectangle Pro. The whole map is in the Mac window manager comparison.
The complaint free Rectangle cannot answer
A recognisable share of people searching for a Rectangle alternative already have Rectangle installed and working perfectly. Their actual problem is different: windows keep ending up on the wrong screen, stacked and resized, after undocking a laptop or waking it with a dock attached.
Switching to Magnet or Tiles will not fix that, because a snapping tool acts when you press a shortcut and keeps no record of where anything was. Snapping arranges the window in your hand, now. It has no involvement a minute later when macOS decides your two screen layout has to fit onto one.
Two of the paid snapping tools do go further, and it is worth being precise about how far. Rectangle Pro saves a workspace you configure and can reapply it when a display connects. Moom saves layouts you trigger yourself. Both are snapshots you maintain: they put back the arrangement you last saved, not the arrangement you actually had. If your windows drift with the work you are doing, a saved snapshot goes stale between saves.
What does handle it
A restorer, which is its own category. It records where windows live and puts them back after something outside your control rearranges them. Putback is one, and we make it, so discount this paragraph accordingly: it learns your layout while you work rather than asking you to save snapshots, keeps a separate memory for each display setup you use, and restores everything when that setup returns. It never snaps or tiles a window, so it runs alongside Rectangle rather than replacing it.
Longer breakdown against the named alternatives in Putback compared with every Mac window tool. If snapping genuinely is the missing piece, window snapping on Mac covers every option including the built in one.
