Split

Windows 11-style Snap Layouts for macOS.
Room for everything on screen.

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Status: pre-release. The features below work when built from source. There is no notarised download yet.

What it is

macOS tiling stops at halves and quarters. Split is a menu bar app that brings the full Snap Layouts experience from Windows 11 to the Mac:

• Layout picker. Click the menu bar icon or press ⌃⌥S, then click a zone. The window you were just using snaps into it.
• Snap Assist. After you snap one window, Split shows your other windows in each empty zone so you can fill the layout in a couple of clicks.
• Snap Groups. Windows snapped together stay together: drag a shared edge and the neighbours resize with it, focus one and the rest come forward, and restore a whole group from the menu bar.
• Custom layouts. Six built-in layouts (halves, two-thirds, thirds, quarters, half plus two stacked, narrow-wide-narrow) and an editor for your own: split a zone, drag the dividers, merge zones back.
• Keyboard movement. ⌃⌥ + arrow keys move the focused window to the neighbouring zone, and across to the next display at the edge.

Requirements

• macOS 26 or later
• Accessibility permission (to move and resize windows)
• Screen Recording permission (optional, for window thumbnails in Snap Assist)

Roadmap

• Layout model and geometry (SplitCore)
• Snap a window to a zone; arrow-key movement
• Layout picker in the menu bar
• Snap Assist
• Snap Groups with linked resize
• Custom layout editor
• Settings: shortcuts, launch at login, ignored apps
• Signed, notarised release with automatic updates

Building from source

Requires Xcode 27 and XcodeGen.

brew install xcodegen
git clone https://github.com/angad-kandhari/split.git
cd split
xcodegen generate
open Split.xcodeproj

The core layout logic is a standalone Swift package and can be tested on its own:

cd Packages/SplitCore
swift test

Releasing

scripts/release.sh <version> archives the app, signs it with Developer ID, notarises and staples it, builds a DMG and writes the Sparkle update feed. It needs a notarytool keychain profile named split-notary and the Sparkle signing key in the login keychain. SKIP_NOTARIZE=1 stops after signing for a local dry run.

Private API

Split uses two undocumented macOS calls, as other Mac window managers do: one maps an Accessibility window to its window ID, and one brings another app's window to the front, which is what lets a Snap Group come forward together. They may change in a future macOS release.

Why not the Mac App Store?

Moving other apps' windows requires the Accessibility API, which sandboxed App Store apps cannot use. Split is distributed directly as a signed and notarised download.

Licence

MIT