Accessibility permission

Layout moves, resizes, and focuses the windows of other apps, and it listens for its keyboard shortcuts. macOS only allows this for apps you’ve turned on in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility.

Without this permission, Layout stays paused. You can open the editor, create workspaces, and prepare layouts, but no window moves and no shortcut works until you allow Layout and activate it.

What Layout uses it for

• Reading the windows of your apps: their titles, positions, sizes, and whether they’re minimized or in full screen.
• Moving, resizing, and focusing those windows, including moving the windows of inactive workspaces out of sight.
• Handling its shortcuts, such as ⌥Tab and ⌃⌥1…9, and ⌘Tab if you turn on the replacement.

See Privacy for everything Layout reads.

Grant access in the guided setup

The Accessibility step of the guided setup walks you through it:

1. Click Open settings. Layout asks macOS for the permission, and System Settings opens at Privacy & Security › Accessibility.
2. Turn on Layout in the list. If Layout isn’t listed, click + and add Layout.app from your Applications folder. Show Layout.app reveals the app in the Finder.
3. Come back to Layout. The step checks the permission on its own; Check again checks it right away.

When macOS confirms the permission, the step reads “Accessibility access granted” and you can continue.

If you click Set up later, the setup goes on without the permission. The Accessibility step then stays unchecked, and the last step lists the permission as needed.

Grant access later

• Turn on Layout in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility. In Layout, Open System Settings… next to Accessibility access, in Settings › About, opens that pane.
• While Layout is paused without the permission, the editor shows a “Layout is paused.” banner with Set up access. It reopens the guided setup at the Accessibility step.
• If you choose Activate from the Layout menu bar icon without the permission, macOS shows its own permission prompt instead.

Once the permission is granted, activate Layout from the editor banner (Activate Layout) or from the menu bar icon (Activate).

If macOS doesn’t recognize the permission

If Layout is turned on in the list but still reports that it’s waiting for permission, add it again:

1. In System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility, select Layout and remove it with −.
2. Click +, choose Layout in your Applications folder, and turn it on.
3. Go back to Layout. The permission is checked again when Layout comes to the front.

If the shortcuts stop working while Layout is active, Layout shows “Shortcuts are unavailable. Check Accessibility permission, then deactivate and reactivate Layout.” Check the permission, then pause Layout and activate it again.

If you turn off the permission while Layout is active

Layout pauses right away and shows “Accessibility permission was revoked. Allow Layout again to restore hidden windows.” Without the permission, it can’t move the windows of other workspaces back, so they stay where Layout left them, in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Allow Layout again, then activate it: Layout first restores the windows it had hidden. You can also use Recover. See Recovering windows.

What Layout never asks for

Layout never asks for Full Disk Access or Screen Recording. The guided setup says so on the Accessibility step: “No Full Disk Access or Screen Recording permission is requested.” Features that look like they might need screen capture don’t use it: the veil shown while you drag a window uses the app’s icon, and the Layout Overview draws schematic desktops.