Tiles comes from FreeMacSoft, the people behind AppCleaner, and it has the same character: small, quiet, does one job, asks for nothing. It gets recommended far less than Rectangle and deserves better, particularly if your Mac is older than the alternatives support.
The short answer
Tiles is worth it if you want window snapping with no learning curve, or if you are on macOS 10.14 where most of the alternatives will not install. Pick Rectangle instead if you want documented snap areas, shortcut cycling and a clear upgrade path, since both are free and Rectangle is the more thoroughly documented of the two.
What Tiles is
FreeMacSoft describes it as “a window manager which allows you to easily reorganize windows”, under the tagline “organize your macOS windows in a snap”. That is the whole pitch and it is accurate. This is a snapper: you tell it where a window should go and it puts it there.
| Price | Not stated on the product page. FreeMacSoft offers a general donation link rather than a purchase page |
|---|---|
| Publisher | FreeMacSoft, also the publisher of AppCleaner and LiteIcon |
| Minimum macOS | macOS 10.14 and later |
| How you trigger it | Drag a window to a screen edge, a keyboard shortcut, or the menu bar |
| Restores a saved layout | Not documented |
The three ways in, and why the menu bar one matters
Most snapping tools give you two routes: drag to an edge, or memorise shortcuts. Tiles adds a third, a menu bar list of positions you can click. That sounds trivial and is not. Keyboard shortcuts for window management are the kind of thing you have to use for a fortnight before they stick, and until they do, a visible list of options is the difference between using the tool and forgetting you installed it.
Its macOS 10.14 floor is the other quietly useful detail. Rectangle needs 10.15 and later, Amethyst needs 10.15, AeroSpace needs 13. If you are keeping an older Mac alive on purpose, the list of window tools that still run is short and Tiles is on it.
What Tiles does not do
It does not tile automatically
Despite the name, this is not a tiling window manager in the Amethyst or AeroSpace sense. Those place every window for you continuously, by algorithm. Tiles moves the window you asked it to move, when you ask. The naming collision here trips people up regularly.
It does not remember anything
The product page documents no layout saving, no profiles, and nothing about display changes. That is normal for a snapper and not a criticism of Tiles specifically: snapping acts once, on one window, and keeps no record. So Tiles, like every free snapper here, does nothing for you when a monitor disconnects and macOS piles everything onto the screens that remain. Two paid snappers bolt a save on top, Moom with recalled layouts and Rectangle Pro with a workspace it can reapply when a display connects, and both put back your last save rather than where your windows were.
Where Putback fits, honestly
Disclosure: Putback is ours. It is not a Tiles alternative, because it does not snap a single window. It learns where your windows sit while you work, keeps a separate memory for every display setup, and puts everything back when your displays change. People run it next to a snapper rather than instead of one, and that is the intended arrangement.
If your windows never move without you moving them, you do not need it. If you dock and undock and keep rebuilding the same desk, that is the gap. The full category map is in the Mac window manager comparison, and the mechanism is in why your Mac windows move when you unplug a monitor.
