A native macOS window manager that resizes neighbours together, not just one window at a time.
BetterTile is built with Swift, SwiftUI, AppKit, and the macOS Accessibility API. Public Apple APIs are preferred; any private API proposal requires an explicit project-fit, safety, compatibility, and fallback review before adoption. No code injection, no SIP workarounds, and no behavioral tracking. Sparkle is the only runtime dependency and provides secure update checks. BetterTile currently asks for one permission and explains why before it does.
BetterTile.Demo.GitHub.mp4
Drag a window toward an edge or corner and BetterTile previews the zone before you let go. Snapping only engages on a real title-bar drag, so it never fights you while you are working inside a window.
Hover the seam between two adjacent windows and drag it. Both windows resize against the shared boundary at once. Choose a ghost preview that commits on release, or live resizing that updates as you move. Boundaries are derived from actual window frames within a tolerance you control, so a seam is only offered when it genuinely exists.
Bento arranges the visible windows on each display into a split tree. New windows are placed by scoring every candidate split and picking the one that moves and resizes the least. Panes carry weights and locks, and you can swap, retarget, or float any window out of the layout. Resize a Bento pane natively and the tree adopts the change rather than fighting it.
Hold the configured modifiers over a focused window to open the Layout Wheel, move to a sector, and release to apply its exact action. The default trigger is Control + Option + Shift. The center, an Empty sector, Escape, or releasing in the gap between two rings cancels without changing the window. One Level keeps the wheel compact; Two Levels adds a second ring for utility actions. Every sector can be assigned in Settings, including Repair Bento when the display is using Bento mode.
An optional Middle Click trigger is available for one-handed use. When enabled, BetterTile reserves unmodified middle-click system-wide, so other apps do not receive it until the option is turned off.
Global shortcuts for every standard action, with conflict detection so you find out at assignment time instead of the first time a shortcut silently fails.
BetterTile keeps a bounded frame history per window, so a misplaced action is one step back rather than a manual reconstruction.
- Apple Silicon Mac
- macOS 26 or later
- Accessibility permission (the only permission BetterTile requests)
To build it yourself, also Xcode 26 / Swift 6.3 or later.
Public beta builds are distributed as disk images from
GitHub Releases. Download
the latest BetterTile-*-beta.dmg, open it, and drag BetterTile into the
Applications shortcut before launching it.
The beta application is ad-hoc signed: it carries a valid macOS code
signature, but it is not signed with a Developer ID. macOS therefore cannot
identify the developer and will refuse the first launch. Open System Settings
→ Privacy & Security, find the message about BetterTile, and choose Open
Anyway, after confirming that the download came from this repository. You can
also check the download against the .sha256 file published beside it.
Updates are authenticated separately: each DMG carries an EdDSA signature that Sparkle verifies against a public key built into the app, independently of the macOS code signature.
BetterTile checks the repository's GitHub-hosted update feed every four hours by default. It shows release notes and asks before downloading or installing. You can turn automatic checks off in General Settings or use Check for Updates… at any time.
Public beta limitation. Ad-hoc signatures differ from build to build, so macOS treats an updated BetterTile as a new application and the Accessibility permission does not survive an update. After installing an update, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, remove BetterTile with the – button, and add it again. Signing with a Developer ID certificate is what removes this step.
To build it from source instead:
git clone https://github.com/LMC-Karma/BetterTile.git
cd BetterTile
cp Config/LocalSigning.xcconfig.example Config/LocalSigning.xcconfigAdd your Apple ID in Xcode → Settings → Accounts, then replace
YOUR_TEAM_ID in Config/LocalSigning.xcconfig with your Personal Team ID.
The local file is gitignored, so signing never changes the shared Xcode project.
Then run open BetterTile.xcodeproj, select the shared BetterTile scheme,
and run. BetterTile launches into the menu bar; the Dock icon is optional and
off by default. On first launch it explains how to grant Accessibility
permission. See Development setup for Team ID discovery
and agent setup.
For command-line validation:
swift test
swift buildPackage.swift intentionally exposes only the supporting libraries, so Xcode
cannot offer a bundle-less duplicate BetterTile executable.
macOS ties privacy grants to an app's code-signing designated requirement. Xcode's Sign to Run Locally ad-hoc identity changes on every rebuild, so macOS cannot carry the Accessibility grant forward and you end up re-granting it constantly.
Fix it once: add an Apple ID under Xcode › Settings › Accounts, then put
that account's Personal Team ID in the gitignored
Config/LocalSigning.xcconfig. Keep the bundle identifier unchanged and always
launch the Xcode app target rather than the Swift package executable. After
switching from ad-hoc to Apple Development signing, remove the stale BetterTile
entry from Accessibility once and grant the newly signed build access. Later
rebuilds signed by the same team keep the grant.
BetterTile reads window geometry through the public Accessibility API and does nothing else with it. It does not send window data, configuration, analytics, telemetry, or crash reports anywhere. Your configuration is a plain JSON file on your own disk.
Update checks contact GitHub to fetch the public Sparkle appcast and release archive. They do not include BetterTile window data, configuration, diagnostics, analytics, telemetry, crash reports, or a Sparkle system profile. See the security and privacy policy for the review requirements that apply to any future network, data, dependency, or permission change.
Accessibility is currently the sole mandatory permission, and BetterTile explains what it is for in-product before requesting it.
- No cross-Space window movement. macOS exposes no public API that can do this safely, and BetterTile will not use a private one to fake it.
- Stage Manager groups stay single-window. A thumbnail drag selects one validated frontmost real member. BetterTile does not move or synchronize the other windows in that Stage group.
BetterTile is free, and it will always be free. There is no paid tier, no subscription, no trial, and no feature held back behind a purchase. It is released under the GNU GPL v3 or later — use it, read it, fork it, and share modified versions under the same license.
- Architecture — layer boundaries, coordinate model, event ordering, Layout Wheel integration, and the Bento split tree
- Development setup — build, sign, run, and test on your own Mac
- Beta releases — version, validate, sign, and publish an update
- Contributing — branch, test, and pull-request workflow
- Security — reporting policy and permission rules
- Third-party notices — upstream code and attribution
- AGENTS.md — build, test, and convention rules for AI coding agents
BetterTile exists because other people published their work openly.
- Vorssaint — BetterTile includes adapted settings and menu-panel presentation code from Vorssaint, and its demand-based service ownership shaped BetterTile's runtime lifecycle. See Third-party notices for attribution and terms.
- Rectangle — the reference for event-driven window management on macOS, and a reminder that the best window manager is the one doing nothing until you ask.
Thank you to both. Open source made this better.
Made by @LMC-Karma