Moving windows

When you move or resize a window yourself, Layout leaves it where you put it. This page covers what happens then, how to put a window back in a zone, and the other actions available on each window.

Drag or resize a window

While you drag or resize a window, Layout draws nothing over it: you see the app itself, as macOS shows it. If borders are on, they follow the window’s frame.

The window keeps the position and size you chose, and becomes floating, even if you drop it over a zone. Layout doesn’t snap it to a zone or swap it with another window.

To put a floating window back in a zone, assign it explicitly (see below), or undo the move.

Undo a move or resize

Press ⌃⌥Z to undo the last move or resize you made in the active workspace. Layout restores the window’s size, position, and zone. The command palette has the same action: Undo window move or resize.

• Each workspace keeps its own history of the last 30 moves and resizes.
• The history lives in memory only. It’s cleared when you pause or quit Layout.
• It doesn’t touch ⌘Z in your apps.
• Minimized or hidden windows must be back on screen before you can undo their placement.

Window actions in the editor

At the bottom of the editor, Open windows lists the windows of the selected workspace, with their number. The list starts folded: click Open windows to unfold it. Each window shows its title, and its zone or “Floating”. For each window:

• Open focuses the window, and switches to its workspace if needed.
• The … button (Window actions) offers:
  • Float Window: takes the window out of its zone. It stays where it is.
  • Assign to followed by a zone’s name: moves the window into that zone, only for the active workspace. The window joins the zone’s stack; no window is pushed out, which always floats.
  • Wildcard App: makes the window’s app come to you from any workspace. See Wildcard apps.
  • Move To: moves the window to another workspace, and only that one. It leaves every other workspace it belonged to. If the target workspace isn’t active, the window moves out of sight right away. The list holds every workspace but this one, including a workspace that already shares the window: it then stays there alone, in the zone and at the position it has there.
  • Remove from followed by this workspace’s name: takes the window out of this workspace only. A window shared with other workspaces stays in them; a window that was only here goes to General. If this workspace is active, the window moves out of sight right away. General doesn’t offer it for a window that’s only there.
  • Bring Back on Screen: switches to the workspace if needed, un-minimizes the window, and brings it back into view at its position in that workspace.

Once the list is unfolded, the refresh button on its right scans the windows again. To put the active workspace’s windows back in place, use Reapply in the editor’s header; for another workspace, the header shows Switch here instead.

Keyboard shortcuts for the last window

These act on the window you used most recently in the active workspace:

Shortcut	Action
⌃⌥F	Float the last window: take it out of its zone.
⌃⌥R	Bring the last window back on screen.

The Layout bar offers the same two actions for each app: right-click its icon and choose Float Recent Window or Bring Recent Window on Screen.

Clicking an app in the Dock

When you click an app in the Dock, or bring it forward any other way, Layout follows its window: it switches to the workspace that holds that window and restores the window’s position there. The window keeps its workspace; nothing is reassigned.

If macOS doesn’t say which window came forward, Layout picks a window of that app in the current workspace first, then the app’s most recent window.

A wildcard app is the exception: Layout doesn’t switch, and the window the app brought forward comes into the current workspace instead, until you leave. ⌘` in a wildcard app does the same.

Dragging onto an app in the Dock

Drag a file, some text or a link onto an app’s icon in the Dock and hold it there a moment, about a third of a second: Layout brings that app’s window forward, switching to its workspace, so you can drop into the window. A wildcard app’s window comes to the workspace you’re in instead. An app with no window is left to the Dock.

While you drag, an app you bring forward another way, such as with ⌘Tab, comes forward right away too, before you let go.

Cycling an app’s windows with ⌘ `

⌘` lists the windows of the app in front, from every workspace, and a quick press goes back to the app’s previous window: see Switch between an app’s windows. Picking a window of another workspace takes you there.

When you turn that list off in Settings › Shortcuts, or when Layout knows fewer than two windows of the app, ⌘` belongs to the app in front: it moves to the app’s next window, in the app’s own order, including a window another workspace has hidden. When that window lives in another workspace, Layout switches there. ⌘⇧` goes the other way. If you press it several times during a switch, the last window the app picked wins.

Layout knows the key at its default place only. If you changed Move focus to next window in the macOS keyboard settings, the new shortcut goes to the app, and Layout doesn’t follow it.

Move windows between workspaces

Besides Move To, you can drag windows between workspaces in the Layout Overview. A window you move to a workspace joins its New windows zone, if it has one. See New windows.

From the keyboard, a workspace’s shortcut with ⌘ added sends the window you used last in this workspace there: ⌃⌥⌘2 for the workspace on ⌃⌥2. You stay where you are: Sent to and the workspace’s name show below the menu bar, and the keyboard goes to the next window here. A workspace whose shortcut already holds ⌘, as Hyper does, has no such key.