Magnet 3.0.7 for macOS

Resize to a quarter

Magnet uses 15 built-in keyboard shortcuts and drag zones to push any window into a precise spot on your display, no overlapping and no hunting for an edge.

Split two apps evenly

Dragging a browser to the left edge and a notes app to the right takes about two seconds, and both windows snap flush against each other without any manual resizing.

Reclaim a full-screen focus

One shortcut returns your working window to a clean full-screen layout, leaving the menu bar visible so you can still drag something out when you need it. Bottom line: a window manager that stays out of your way until the moment you nudge a corner.

Dragging too fast to trigger the snap

I see the same three habits trip people up during their first week with Magnet, and they're all easy to fix once you know what's happening.

First, people drag a window too fast to the edge and miss the snap zone entirely. Magnet needs a brief pause at the edge of the display — not a long one, maybe half a beat — before it registers the gesture. If you fling the window, macOS thinks you're just moving it to another screen. Slow down by about twenty percent and the snap rectangle appears every time.

Second, many people forget that the menu bar icon holds the entire shortcut list. They memorize two or three hotkeys from a friend's recommendation and never discover the quarter-snap or third-snap options sitting right there in the dropdown. Click the little magnet icon once, scan the list, and you'll probably find a layout you didn't know existed.

Third, some users assume Magnet conflicts with Stage Manager or Spaces and disable one or the other. They actually play well together — Magnet arranges windows inside whichever Space you're on, and Stage Manager's recent-apps strip stays responsive. You don't have to choose.

Writers, coders, and editors juggling references

Anyone who writes, codes, or edits while referencing source material benefits the most. That covers students with a PDF on one side and a word processor on the other, developers keeping a terminal and a browser visible, and video editors who park their timeline across half the screen while previewing footage in the remaining space.

People working on a single laptop display — no external monitor — genuinely see the biggest change. A 13- or 14-inch screen feels cramped until you can split it evenly with one keystroke. The quarter-snap shortcuts turn a small canvas into four distinct work zones, which sounds tight but works surprisingly well for chat windows, calculators, or a music player you want to glance at.

If you plug into two or more external displays, Magnet keeps its behavior consistent across all of them. The same control-option-left that snaps a window left on your MacBook screen does the same on the 27-inch monitor to your right. No per-display setup, no calibration.

People who spend hours inside a single full-screen app won't feel much benefit. Magnet's value shows up when you juggle three or more windows and keep losing one behind another.

My Monday morning clutter-to-calm routine

Say it's Monday morning. I open my notes app, a browser with three tabs of research, and a folder of images I need to sort through. Everything is overlapping and I can't read a full sentence without clicking something.

I drag the browser to the left edge of the screen and wait for the transparent rectangle to appear. It snaps into the left half. I grab my notes app, drag it to the right edge, and it fills the remaining half. Now I can read source material on the left and type on the right without touching a window border.

Halfway through, I need to pull a statistic from a spreadsheet. I press control-option-left to bump the browser into the left third of the screen, then control-option-right to send the spreadsheet to the right two-thirds. My notes shrink into the bottom-right quarter with control-option-J. I glance at the numbers, type the figure, then restore the even split with two drags.

When a notification pulls me away, I hit control-option-F to maximize my notes window without entering Apple's full-screen mode. The menu bar stays visible, so I can drag a file into the window from the desktop when I come back. Twenty minutes of focused writing, zero time spent adjusting window edges by hand.

Drag to corners for quarter-screen snaps

A few things hide just below the surface, and they make the daily experience smoother once you know them.

• Drag to corners for quarters. Most people learn the edge-drag for halves, but dragging a window into any corner snaps it to a quarter of the screen. No keyboard shortcut needed — just aim for the corner and Magnet does the rest.
• Thirds via the menu bar. The default hotkeys cover halves and quarters, but thirds are available from the dropdown. If you regularly need a wide reference pane next to a narrow writing column, assign custom shortcuts for left-third and right-two-thirds. The preference pane takes about thirty seconds to set.
• Six-display support is automatic. If you run a multi-monitor setup, you don't configure anything. Magnet detects each display separately. A window snapped left on display two stays on display two. Dragging across the boundary between screens doesn't trigger a snap, which prevents accidental resizing when you move something to another monitor.
• Retina and non-Retina don't matter. I mention this because some window managers from the pre-Retina days still have rounding errors that leave one-pixel gaps or misalignments on high-DPI screens. Magnet sizes windows to the exact pixel grid of whatever display they're on, whether it's a 5K Studio Display or an old 1080p monitor you keep around for email.
• Custom shortcuts override defaults. In the preferences, you can reassign any action to a key combination that fits your muscle memory. If control-option conflicts with another utility you run, switch it to command-shift or anything else that feels natural. The menu bar icon always reflects your current assignments.

• macOS 13 or later
• Works on both Apple Silicon and Intel 64-bit Macs