Recovering windows

When you switch workspaces, Layout moves the windows of the other workspaces to the bottom-right corner of the screen. Before it moves a window there, it writes the window’s title and position to a recovery journal on your disk. That’s how it can always put windows back, even if something goes wrong in the middle of a switch or Layout quits unexpectedly.

Recover all hidden windows

Any of these brings back every window in the recovery journal:

• Recover, at the top of the editor. It’s dimmed when no window is waiting.
• Recover windows, in the Layout menu bar icon’s menu. This one also works while Layout is paused.
• Recover hidden windows in the command palette, or ⌃⌥⇧R.

Each window goes back to the position it had before Layout hid it, and joins the active workspace. A window you had minimized yourself stays minimized: Layout restores its position without un-minimizing it. If an app hidden with ⌘H has a window waiting in the corner, Layout shows the app again first.

When everything is back, Layout shows “Recovery complete. No windows remain hidden by Layout.”

Bring back one window

To bring back a single window, use Bring back on screen in its actions menu, in the editor’s list of windows, or press ⌃⌥R for the window you used last in the active workspace. The Layout bar offers Bring recent window on screen when you right-click an app’s icon.

Layout un-minimizes the window if needed and moves it back into view, at its position in that workspace. See Moving windows.

When you pause or quit

Pausing Layout puts back every window it moved out of sight. As with Recover, those windows join the workspace that was active, so when you activate Layout again, launch your layouts to sort them back into their workspaces.

Quitting does the same: Layout spends at most five seconds restoring windows, then quits anyway so it never blocks you. Windows it couldn’t restore in time stay in the journal, and Layout restores them the next time you activate it.

After a crash

If Layout stops unexpectedly, the journal is still on disk. When you open Layout again, Recover is available, and activating Layout recovers the windows in the journal before anything else.

While Layout keeps running, it recognizes each window in the journal directly. After Layout restarts, it has to find them again: it looks for a window of the same app process, with the same bundle ID and the same title. If exactly one window matches, Layout moves it back. If the app has quit since, its window no longer exists, and Layout drops that entry.

When several windows could match, for example two windows of one app with the same title, Layout doesn’t guess. It keeps the entry in the journal and reports that the window “could not be reliably identified”. If some windows are still in the journal after activation, Layout says how many and suggests using Recover windows again.

If a window still seems lost

1. Check the other workspaces. The window may belong to another workspace: open the Layout Overview with ⌃⌥O to see every workspace’s windows, or search for its title in the command palette to focus it.
2. Use Recover to bring back everything in the journal.
3. Find the window in the editor’s list of windows, under Windows in this workspace, and choose Bring back on screen from its actions menu.
4. Check that the window isn’t minimized in the Dock, or that its app isn’t hidden with ⌘H. Clicking the app in the Dock brings it forward.
5. If the window is in macOS full screen, Layout doesn’t manage it. Reach it the way you usually reach full-screen windows, for example with Mission Control.
6. Pause Layout. Pausing restores every window in the journal.

If none of this helps, export diagnostics before quitting Layout, and send the file with your report.

If the Accessibility permission was turned off

Without the permission, Layout can’t move windows, so it can’t bring them back either. It pauses and shows “Accessibility permission was revoked. Allow Layout again to restore hidden windows.” Turn the permission back on, then activate Layout or use Recover. See Accessibility permission.