For developers juggling projectsNew in 0.6 · Focus Agent
Your client work and side projects each get a workspace. Keep the right editor, terminals, browser tabs and AI chats together, and switch projects with one shortcut.
Free for 14 days, no card needed. Then $9.99 once during early access. macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel.
Try it in your browserReal shortcuts: ⌃⌥1 to 3, or hover the screen and hold ⌥ Tab.
You use the same apps for several projects. Give each workspace a project folder and a Slack channel. When you switch, Claude and Codex open that project's latest chat, and Slack goes to its channel. You keep using the windows you already have.
The dev server keeps running while you work elsewhere. Commands start when you launch the workspace, so switching back won't start them again.
Step 1: Open your project
Choose what each project needs once. Press Control Option Shift 1⌃⌥⇧1 to open its folder in your editor, load its browser tabs and start its dev server. Your chats and other apps open with it.
Start with New Workspace from Project…. Pick a folder or a Claude or Codex project. Layout suggests your usual editor and terminal, plus the dev server from itspackage.json. You choose what to include.
For the projects you open every morning, turn on Launch at Login. Layout opens them when it starts and takes you to your default workspace.
Commands run when you launch a workspace, in the project's folder. Switching never runs anything.
Step 2: Switch projects
Move to another project while your dev server keeps running. When you come back, your windows are where you left them. If Claude or Codex needs you in another workspace, Layout notifies you and a shortcut takes you to that session.
Try them here: the keys light up as you press them. Every shortcut in the docs
Remap any shortcut in Settings, for all your keyboards or just one. Keep ⌃⌥ on the MacBook, and put your workspaces on a Voyager layer, a Moonlander thumb cluster, Hyper or F13.
Layout knows which keyboards are connected, and while both are plugged in, both sets work. QMK, ZMK, Oryx and Karabiner setups work as they are, on a Glove80 or a Corne too.
Keyboard
Every keyboard uses these, unless it has shortcuts of its own. Connected: Built-in keyboard, Voyager.
While it's connected, these work along with the other connected keyboards' shortcuts; when two give one key different jobs, the keyboard connected last wins. Unchanged shortcuts follow All keyboards.
Built-in keyboard uses every keyboard's shortcuts. Change one below to give it its own.
Shortcuts
Workspace shortcutsGo to
Step 3: Make room for your work
Keep a browser beside the code for your web app, or leave room for the Simulator when working on mobile. Start from a template, drag the dividers and choose where each app goes.
Workspaces on the left. On the right, your displays and their zones, then one list of apps: where each one goes, and what it opens when the workspace launches. While Layout is paused, you can set everything up before it moves a single window.
Before a window leaves the screen, Layout writes it to a journal. Pausing or quitting puts every window back, and so does Control Option Shift R⌃⌥⇧R. After a crash, open Layout again: each window goes back to its workspace.
Layout moves windows with the Accessibility permission. It never asks for Screen Recording or Full Disk Access. To type your commands into Ghostty or iTerm2, it asks once to control that terminal.
No account, no telemetry. Your layouts live in ~/Library/Application Support/Layout.
When something goes wrong, Send Diagnostics shows what goes, then sends it only when you click. Window titles, commands and link parameters become aliases unless you include them.
Early access
$9.99instead of $19
One-time purchase, no subscription. The price goes up to $19 with Layout 1.0.
The trial has every feature. You don't need a card to start it. Refunds within 14 days, no questions asked.
Everything else is in the documentation.
Yes. A workspace spans every display you connect, and switching workspaces switches them all. Choose a display above the editor's canvas to give it its own zones and apps. Unplug one, and its windows wait on the main display until you plug it back in. Displays switch together: one display can't show another workspace on its own.
No. Two window managers would move the same windows, so quit AeroSpace first. Layout checks before it turns on.
No. Layout's workspaces live on one desktop: windows from other workspaces are moved out of view instead of minimized, the way AeroSpace does it. Its shortcuts and its record of which window goes where are its own, not Mission Control's, so they keep working after your Mac sleeps or a display comes back. Used to ⌃1 to ⌃9? Keep them: see Coming from Spaces. Leave native full screen before you switch.
They come back. Layout keeps a journal of every window it moves out of view. Open Layout again: each window goes back to its workspace. While it's paused, choose Recover Hidden Windows from the Layout icon in the menu bar.
Yes, the ones you set to Launch at Login. The windows macOS reopens after a restart are new to Layout, so they start in General. Each time Layout opens, at login too, it launches your marked workspaces, opening their apps and placing their windows, and you end in the one you made the default. Turn it on in a workspace's menu or in Settings › General.
Yes. Give a workspace a project and a Slack channel. Switching to it brings back that project's latest chat in Claude or Codex and opens the channel in Slack, in the window you already have. For Slack, paste the channel's Copy link address. Discord, Linear, Notion and other apps take a link in their own format instead, such as a discord:// link.
Connect them once: in Settings › Integrations, click Add next to Claude Code and Codex. When an agent asks for you or finishes in another workspace, a card drops from the top of the screen, and ⌃⌥N takes you to its chat, terminal or tmux pane. Apps with a Dock badge, such as Slack, notify you the same way, with nothing to set up.
Yes, when you launch the workspace. Give its terminal the commands to run, such as pnpm dev: Layout types them into your own shell, in the project's folder. Ghostty, iTerm2 and WezTerm show them as panes of one window, Terminal and kitty open a window each, and cmux a tab. Run them in a tmux session to keep them going when the window closes. Stop Workspace… gives them a Ctrl-C, so your dev server frees its port. Switching workspaces never runs anything.
Yes. Remap Layout's shortcuts in Settings, down to each workspace's own. Function keys work on their own, so a spare key can open the command palette.
Yes, it's made for them. Each keyboard can have its own shortcuts: keep ⌃⌥ on your MacBook, and put your workspaces on a Voyager or Moonlander layer, on Hyper, or on F13. Layout goes by the keyboards you've connected, so QMK, ZMK, Oryx and Karabiner setups work as they are. With two keyboards connected, both sets work.
Layout checks for a new version every hour. When one is out, Update available in the Layout bar checks again, shows what's new in the newest version and installs it; nothing downloads before you choose to update. The changelog lists what changed in every version. Free lifetime updates.
No. It's $9.99 once during early access, after a 14-day free trial with every feature. The price goes up to $19 with Layout 1.0, and a license bought before keeps working.
Yes, within 14 days of buying, no questions asked: reply to your receipt from Polar, or write to support@getlayout.app. The key then stops working at its next check.
Try every feature free for 14 days. You don't need a card to start.
$9.99 early access · 14-day trial · macOS 14+