Layout bar

While Layout is active, a dark bar covers the top of the screen, where the macOS menu bar usually is. It shows the current workspace, the apps of that workspace, and a few quick actions.

What’s on the bar

Left: the workspace

• The Layout logo opens the editor, like ⌃⌥,.
• The workspace’s name opens a menu with:
  • every workspace, grouped by section, with a check mark on the current one: choose one to switch to it;
  • at the end of each section, Launch Section, which launches every workspace of that section, then returns to the one you were in;
  • Launch Workspace, which launches the current workspace’s layout;
  • Open Layout, which opens the editor;
  • Pause Layout, which pauses Layout and puts back every window it moved out of sight;
  • Show the Layout Bar, to turn the bar off.

Middle: the workspace’s apps

The bar shows an icon for each app of the workspace: the apps its layout assigns first, then any other app that has a window in it. If there are more icons than room, they scroll sideways.

• The app in front is highlighted.
• Click an icon to focus that app’s most recent window in this workspace.
• A dimmed icon is an app of the layout that has no window here yet. Click it to open the app in its zones, with its work context, without relaunching the other apps.
• A red dot on an icon means the app shows a badge in the Dock, for example for unread messages.

Right-click an icon to see the app’s windows in this workspace (minimized ones are marked) and pick one. The same menu has Float recent window and Bring recent window on screen for the app’s most recent window, or Open in this layout when it has no window here. Wildcard app takes the app out of every layout: see Wildcard apps.

Right: actions and status

• Reapply positions puts the workspace’s windows back in their zones. See Layouts and zones.
• Settings opens the editor with its settings.
• The Apple button shows the macOS menus (see below).
• Wi-Fi and battery status. Click either to open its pane in System Settings. The Wi-Fi icon shows whether you’re connected, not which network.
• The time.

On a display with a camera notch, the bar keeps its controls clear of it: the workspace menu and app icons sit to the left of the notch, and the actions to the right.

Zones start below the bar, so no window slips under it. When you turn the bar off, the zones get that space back.

Reach the macOS menus

The bar sits where the macOS menu bar is, and it doesn’t replace it:

• Move the pointer to the top edge of the screen, or press ⌃F2. The macOS menu bar slides down over the Layout bar, which stays in place, so nothing flickers when the menu bar slides back up.
• Or click the Apple button on the bar. The Layout bar steps aside until the pointer leaves the top of the screen and no macOS menu is open.

Layout doesn’t change any macOS setting to do this.

Hide the macOS menu bar automatically

The Layout bar works best when macOS hides its own menu bar until you need it. Layout suggests setting it to Always, which keeps the Layout bar visible beneath macOS notifications:

1. Open System Settings, then Menu Bar on macOS 26 or later, or Control Center on macOS 14 and 15.
2. Find Automatically hide and show the menu bar.
3. Choose Always.

Open macOS Menu Bar settings, in the guided setup, and Open System Settings…, in Settings › General, open System Settings for you. This change is optional, and you make it yourself: Layout never changes it, and turning the Layout bar off doesn’t change it back.

Turn the bar on or off

Show the Layout bar is in three places:

• Settings › General;
• the workspace menu on the bar itself;
• the menu of the Layout icon in the menu bar.

The choice is saved. Turning the bar off doesn’t stop Layout: your workspaces, shortcuts, and window management keep working.

With the bar off, you still see which workspace you’re in:

• the Layout icon in the menu bar shows the workspace’s name after the logo; a long name ends with an ellipsis;
• when a workspace shortcut, the workspace switcher (⌥Tab), or an app you bring forward takes you to another workspace, its name and shortcut show for a moment in a small label below the menu bar. Picking a workspace in the palette or a menu doesn’t show it: its name is already in front of you. Show the workspace name when switching, in Settings › General, turns the label off.

The bar also disappears on its own while Layout is paused, and while an app is in macOS full screen.

The Layout menu bar icon

Layout also has an icon in the macOS menu bar: the Layout logo, a tall tile beside two small ones. It stays there while Layout is paused, dimmed, and it’s the way to activate Layout again. When the Layout bar covers the menu bar, show the macOS menu bar first.

Layout puts its icon to the right of the menu bar icons you’ve never moved, since those are the first macOS hides when the menu bar is full. If macOS hides it anyway, Settings › General in Layout says so. To bring it back, turn Layout on under Allow in the Menu Bar in System Settings → Menu Bar (macOS 26), or make room by quitting or hiding other menu bar icons, then ⌘-drag Layout’s icon to the right. macOS remembers where you put it.

Its menu contains:

• Show the Layout bar;
• Save desktop as layout…;
• while Layout is active: Launch all layouts, Launch section, Layout Overview, then the current workspace’s name with Launch layout, Reapply positions, and Switch layout (to pick another workspace);
• Open Layout, Pause or Activate, and Recover windows;
• Export diagnostics…, available even while Layout is paused or busy;
• Quit Layout.

The editor

The Layout editor is the window where you build workspaces. It has no Dock icon and doesn’t appear in the macOS ⌘Tab switcher. To open it:

• click the Layout logo on the bar, or choose Open Layout from the bar’s workspace menu or from the Layout menu bar icon;
• press ⌃⌥, while Layout is active;
• or open Layout again from your Applications folder.

Closing the editor doesn’t quit Layout, which keeps running from the menu bar. The editor also hides after a successful workspace switch, so the workspace is visible.