How to get Windows 11 Snap Layouts and Snap Assist on a Mac

Moved from Windows 11 to a Mac, and your hands miss snapping: hover the maximize button, pick a layout, let Windows offer the rest. Your Mac tiles now, but it stops well short. What the Mac covers, and what WonderSnap (often searched as "Wonder Snap") adds to it.

What you are missing from Windows 11

Windows 11 window management is four features working together:

• Snap Layouts. Hover the maximize button or press Win+Z for a panel of layouts: halves, thirds, quarters, mixed grids. Click a zone, the window goes there.
• Snap Assist. The moment one window snaps, Windows offers your other windows for the remaining zones, one click each.
• Snap groups. Windows snapped together stay together: resize the shared edge and both follow, and the group returns as a unit from the taskbar.
• Win+Arrow. Keyboard snapping to the halves and up to the quarters.

Hovering a taskbar icon also shows live thumbnails of that app's windows, and the PowerToys utility FancyZones lets you draw your own zone layouts.

What your Mac gives you out of the box

macOS Sequoia (15) tiles into halves, quarters and a few fixed combinations. Drag a window to an edge, or use the Window menu, with an on/off toggle for margins between tiled windows, at one fixed size. WonderSnap leaves that alone: edge drags stay 100% native macOS.

Where it stops: no thirds, no Snap Assist after you tile one window, no picker that walks you through a whole screen, and nothing puts your windows back when a monitor reconnects.

The Windows-to-Mac map

Every piece of the Windows 11 flow has a direct equivalent. WonderSnap is a menu-bar app for macOS 14 and later.

Snap Layouts: the ⌃⌥Space picker

One keystroke, then click a layout. ⌃⌥Space floats up the built-in layouts (Halves, Stacked, Thirds, Two-Thirds Left, Two-Thirds Right, Quarters, Maximize, Center) plus your own. Pick one and a full-screen overlay draws the zones, offering your open windows for zone 1, then zone 2. Esc dismisses; anything already placed stays.

Or hold a title bar

The mouse-first route is the hold menu. Click and hold any title bar and a snap menu blooms at the cursor. Sweep onto a target and release; the window glides there. Two styles in Settings > Hold Menu: Gallery (the default), a row of layout tiles including your custom layouts, and Wheel, a ring of wedges mirroring the screen, each badged with its keyboard chord.

Snap Assist

Dock one window with the hold menu and the rest of the screen is offered to you. The remaining zones dim and a palette of your other open windows appears. Click one to fill the highlighted zone. Move the pointer to another empty zone and the palette follows, so you fill only what you want, in any order. Arrows move the selection and Return places it. Esc, a background click or an app switch dismisses the offer, and nothing already placed moves back.

Tiles show live window thumbnails with the optional Screen Recording permission, app icons and window titles without it. Two modes in Settings > Snap Assist: Intelligent offers only zones that look empty, so it can stay quiet when the screen is already full, and Always offers every remaining zone whenever other windows are open.

Win+Arrow: the ⌃⌥ chords

Hold Control + Option and tap a key. The halves sit on the arrow keys and point where the window goes; U and I above J and K match the four corners. The thirds (D, F, G) and two-thirds (E, T) follow the layout Rectangle and Magnet use, so muscle memory carries straight over. Every one can be changed in Settings > Shortcuts.

Tap the same chord again to cycle sizes: ⌃⌥← is the left half, then the left two-thirds, then the left third. Repeating a position that does not cycle restores the window instead, and ⌃⌥⌫ always puts the focused window back exactly where it was. Snaps glide with a short ease-out (Instant, Fast or Normal) instead of teleporting.

Snap groups: linked resize

Drag one shared edge and the neighbours flex with it, live. The tiling stays gapless, and following windows show a brief accent outline. If a neighbour hits its minimum size the whole seam stops and a badge names the app at its limit, so the tiling never tears open. Off switch: "Resize snapped windows together" in Settings > Linked Resize.

Taskbar previews: Dock hover previews

Rest on a running app's Dock icon and its windows appear; click one to jump straight there. It works with Dock auto-hide and magnification. Thumbnails need the optional Screen Recording permission; without it, cards show the app icon and window title. Minimized windows and windows on another desktop get a thumbnail too, badged with where they are; click to bring one back.

Setting it up takes two minutes

1. Download the DMG, drag WonderSnap to Applications, open it. Menu bar only, no Dock icon.
2. Grant Accessibility when onboarding asks; your Mac requires it for any app that moves other apps' windows. WonderSnap never reads your screen content or your keystrokes.
3. Optionally enable window previews (Screen Recording) for live thumbnails. Skip it and you get app icons; turn it on later in Settings.

A short tour then teaches the hold menu, Snap Assist and one chord on a practice window. Replay it from the menu bar: How to Use…

Questions

Does a Mac have Snap Layouts built in?

Not in the Windows 11 sense. macOS Sequoia and later tile into halves, quarters and a few fixed combinations, by edge drag or the Window menu, with an on/off margins toggle. There are no thirds, no Snap Assist and no picker for filling a whole screen. WonderSnap adds those and leaves the native edge tiling untouched.

What is the Mac equivalent of Win+Arrow?

In WonderSnap it is Control + Option plus a key: ⌃⌥← and ⌃⌥→ for the halves, ⌃⌥↑ and ⌃⌥↓ for top and bottom, ⌃⌥U, I, J, K for the four quarters, ⌃⌥D, F, G for thirds. Tapping the same chord again cycles the size, ⌃⌥⌫ restores the window, and every chord can be changed in Settings > Shortcuts.

Does WonderSnap need Screen Recording permission?

No. It needs Accessibility, which your Mac requires for any app that moves other apps' windows. Screen Recording is optional: it only enables live thumbnails in the Snap Assist palette and Dock previews, which otherwise show app icons and window titles.

Does it fight the macOS built-in edge tiling?

No. A plain window drag does nothing in WonderSnap, and dragging to a screen edge stays 100% native macOS. WonderSnap's gestures are the click-and-hold on a title bar, the ⌃⌥ chords and the ⌃⌥Space picker, none of which macOS uses.

Why does my terminal leave a slightly bigger margin than other windows?

Terminal apps size in whole character cells and round to the nearest one, so they cannot fill a zone exactly. WonderSnap picks the largest size that fits and centres the leftover so both seams match. To let the terminal take any size: iTerm2 has DisableWindowSizeSnap (defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2 DisableWindowSizeSnap -integer 1); Apple Terminal has an undocumented per-profile key, EnableSmoothResizing, which takes effect after a relaunch.

How much does it cost, and is there a trial?

Every feature is free for 7 days from the first launch, no account and no card. After that, two options that unlock the same app: $2 for a 1-year license, with no subscription and no auto-renewal, or $8 once for a lifetime license with free updates. Direct download for macOS 14 and later, Apple Silicon and Intel; not on the Mac App Store.