The tiling window manager for Mac that remembers how you workSet the stage once.
Perform every day.
Each project's windows tile themselves into place and stay there. One key brings the whole setup back, instantly.
Free download · 7-day Pro trial on eligible Macs, no card
8:55Watch the complete tutorialEvery feature, start to finish, in under 9 minutes“seems like it's exactly what I've been looking for”
u/yestimishere · Reddit ↗ “I’ve been using this since the beginning and love it. The developer has done a great job at fixing bugs. It’s truly unique.”
u/Latter_Pen2421 · Reddit ↗ “Brother, that's impressive. Clearly a lot of love went into this.”
u/stompworks · Reddit ↗
- Requires
- macOS 14+, Apple Silicon or Intel
- Free plan
- 3 Stages, forever
- Pro
- 7-day trial on eligible Macs
- Permissions
- Accessibility · no SIP changes
Stages · named workspaces across every monitor
One keystroke changes the whole desk.
A Stage is a named desk — the windows for one task, like Dev, Design, or Comms — spread across every display. Press ⌥ 2 and every monitor flips to your Design work at once — tiled panes, tabs, and all — exactly as you left it. Unlike macOS Spaces, there's no slide and no switching one display at a time — and you can still use Spaces inside a Stage. Try it on the desk, or on this page: ⌥ 9 jumps to pricing.
How Stages work- 9named Stages
- Dev, Design, Comms — whatever your projects are called. Three on Free.
- 0windows in the corners
- Other Stages wait in private macOS Spaces, at their exact size and position.
- ⌥1–9direct shortcuts
- Or switch from the Stages Bar, the Snap Wheel, or ⌘Tab.
- 1window, many Stages
- Keep one AI chat, like ChatGPT or Claude, in Dev and Design, placed differently in each. Spaces can only put a whole app on one Desktop or all of them.
Layouts · tiling with TabStack panes and tabs, snap zones, and presets
Each display, its own way of working.
Tile one screen, keep another free-floating, and snap anything anywhere. Every Stage remembers the setup of every display.
Panes that hold tabs.
TabStack tiles windows into resizable panes and stacks extras as tabs. Split, join, and swap by dragging. New in 2.2: put the tabs on any edge, show compact icons, or auto-hide the bar until you need it.
- Automatic tiling per display
- Tabs on top, bottom, left, or right
- Auto-hide for full-pane windows
Window Switcher · a Cmd+Tab that finds any window
A window switcher that knows your Stages.
Cmd+Tab on a Mac switches apps. BetterStage lists every window under its Stage and lands you on the exact one — even a hidden tab or a minimized window. Hold ⌘ and type to search.
Workspaces · save, load, and recover your desk
Workspace Continuity · Free · Saved Workspaces · Pro
Unplug it. Restart it. Your desk comes back.
BetterStage keeps a checkpoint of every Stage, display, pane, and tab. Unplug a monitor and its windows move to the screens you still have, then go home when it returns. After sleep, a restart, or even a crash, your windows go back to their Stages and panes without you saving a thing.
With Pro, save whole desks as named Workspaces and load one with its own shortcut. Tick Open missing apps and BetterStage launches the apps it needs.
Workspaces & ContinuityAI Staging · arrange windows from a sentence
Say how you want to work. Review the plan. Apply.
Twenty windows piled on two screens? Describe the setup in a sentence. AI Staging proposes Stages, a layout preset for each display, and which windows share a pane as tabs — and nothing moves until you apply it. Try one:
Type @ to mention displays, Stages, windows, or apps.
Nothing on the desk moves until you apply it.
Interactive schematic. The real plan comes from your AI provider. Layouts use your TabStack presets, and you can send a change request before applying.
- Your model, or ours
- Bring your own key (25 presets incl. OpenAI, Claude, Gemini), run locally with Ollama or LM Studio, or use BetterStage AI with no key.
- What it reads
- Window titles, app names, and document paths or URLs. Never screenshots or window contents.
- Recipes
- Save the sentences you reuse — “Plan a trip”, “Deep writing” — and run them again any morning.
Controls · Snap Wheel and keyboard shortcuts
Snap Wheel · Free
Every control, right under the pointer.
Flick the trackpad, middle-click, or press a hotkey, and a radial menu opens where you are. Snap a window, switch its Window Mode, send it to a Stage, or run your own Custom Actions — without hunting for a shortcut.
- TriggerTrackpad gesture, middle-click, or hotkey
- Make it yoursRemap or hide any slot
- Custom ActionsOpen apps and files, run commands or Shortcuts (Pro)
Prefer the keyboard? Everything has a key.
Stages
- Switch Stage⌥1–9
- Send window to Stage⌥⇧1–9
- Stages Bar⌥↑
- New Stage⌥N
⌘Tab Switcher
- Windows by Stage⌘Tab
- Search⌘type
- Bring here⌘⌥B
- Same-app window⌘`
Windows
- Retile⌥↓
- Switch Window Mode (Pro)⌥B
- Focus neighbor⌘⌥IJKL
- Reflow as grid⌘⌥G
Snapping
- Halves⌃⌥←/→
- Thirds⌃⌥ASD
- Center⌃⌥C
- Maximize⌃⌥↩
Compare · vs. Stage Manager, Spaces, yabai, AeroSpace
More than the built-in tools. None of the config files.
| Feature | BetterStage | Stage Manager | Spaces | yabai | AeroSpace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Named workspaces | ●Yes | ○No | ○No | ●Yes | ●Yes |
| One workspace spans every monitor | ●Yes | ◐Partial | ◐Partial | ◐Partial | ◐Partial |
| Switch with no animation | ●Yes | ○No | ○No | ●Yes | ●Yes |
| ⌘Tab grouped by workspace | ●Yes | ○No | ○No | ○No | ○No |
| Auto-tiling with tabbed panes | ●Yes | ○No | ○No | ◐Partial | ◐Partial |
| Automatic workspace recovery | ●Yes | ○No | ○No | ○No | ○No |
| Visual settings, no config files | ●Yes | ●Yes | ●Yes | ○No | ○No |
| Works with SIP enabled | ●Yes | ●Yes | ●Yes | ◐Partial | ●Yes |
● yes ◐ partly ○ no · Full comparisons, with sources · The best macOS window manager for you
Testimonials · from Reddit and BetterStage users
What people say about BetterStage.
“My new must have app an all my macs! Its soo smart! Love it and never want to miss it anymore ❤️”
u/FunPoet625 · BetterStage user · View comment ↗ “As someone who developed a window manager app back in the day (Windownaut), this looks super awesome! Congrats!”
Hisham K. · Creator of Windownaut · View comment ↗ “I’ve been using this since the beginning and love it. The developer has done a great job at fixing bugs. It’s truly unique.”
u/Latter_Pen2421 · BetterStage user since launch · View comment ↗ “This looks like the best tiling manager app I've come across so far. Great work!”
u/SpaceAngler03 · r/macapps · View comment ↗ “I love it. I started to work on something similar but it's really hard without disabling SIP and you have to put a lot of work into it. Nice that you have keyboard navigation running as well.”
u/c0desurfer · macOS developer · View comment ↗ “Brother, that's impressive. Clearly a lot of love went into this.”
u/stompworks · r/macapps · View comment ↗ “seems like it's exactly what I've been looking for”
u/yestimishere · r/MacOSApps · View comment ↗
Pricing · Free, or Pro for life
Free
$0forever
No credit card required
Download free- 3 named Stages
- Enhanced Native Mode and 16 snap zones
- Snap Wheel and keyboard shortcuts
- Show in Stages and Move to Display
- Automatic Workspace Continuity
- Works with macOS Spaces
Pro · 1 Device
$19.99once
Lifetime license for 1 Mac
Pro · Multi-DeviceBest value
$39.99once
- All 9 Stages
- TabStack tiling with tabs
- ⌘Tab Switcher
- Saved Workspaces and Clean Load
- App Routing and Pinned Displays
- AI Staging and Custom Actions
Every Pro license includes all of the above, plus everything in Free.
Frequently asked questions
Is BetterStage a Stage Manager alternative?
Yes. BetterStage replaces macOS Stage Manager with named workspaces (stages) that span every monitor, full keyboard shortcuts, and no forced animation or wasted screen space.
Does BetterStage require disabling SIP?
No. BetterStage works with System Integrity Protection fully enabled. Its window-management features require only Accessibility — no Input Monitoring. Screen Recording is optional and only draws window previews in the Pro ⌘Tab Switcher. If you choose to show a Custom Action command in Terminal, macOS may separately ask for Automation access.
Is BetterStage a tiling window manager?
It can be. Each monitor can use TabStack for automatic tiling and tabbed pane layouts, or stay free-floating in Enhanced Native — every stage remembers its own setup.
Does it work across multiple monitors?
Yes. One stage spans all your displays at once, so switching a stage swaps every monitor together. You can also pin a display to keep it constant across stages.
Does BetterStage replace Cmd+Tab (⌘Tab)?
Only if you want it to. Pro includes an optional ⌘Tab Switcher that groups every window by Stage. Pick a window on another Stage and BetterStage switches there and brings up that exact window — even a hidden TabStack tab or a minimized window. Keep holding ⌘ and type to search. Turn it off, or quit BetterStage, and macOS ⌘Tab works again straight away.
Does it work with macOS Spaces?
Yes. A Stage can include several macOS Desktops on every display, each with its own layout. Switch Stages to change your set of windows; switch Desktops to see another layout within the same Stage. Windows from other Stages wait in private Spaces macOS keeps out of sight — nothing is parked in your screen corners.
How does AI Staging work?
Describe your workspace in plain English and BetterStage previews a stage plan before anything moves. Save multiple Recipes for repeat workflows, then bring your own API key, run a local model, or use managed BetterStage AI with no setup.
Is BetterStage free?
Yes — the free tier keeps 3 stages, Enhanced Native Mode, 16 snap zones including Center, portable Settings backups, and window snapping forever. Eligible Macs can start a 7-day Pro trial; previous trials do not reset when you download again or change accounts. Free users on eligible Macs can also try Pro for 15 minutes once every 24 hours. Pro is a one-time purchase from $19.99 — no subscription. BetterStage AI (managed, no API key) is an optional subscription from $4.99/mo.
Community
Join an active Discord community of BetterStage users. The developer is in there too, answering questions, fixing reported bugs, and taking feature requests.
Give every project a desk of its own.
Free to download · macOS 14 or later · Apple Silicon and Intel · v2.2.3