After many years of waiting, macOS has finally introduced native window snapping with macOS Sequoia. This means you no longer need to install apps like Rectangle or Magnet. However, the default shortcuts don’t work properly, often conflict with keyboard shortcuts of other installed apps, and there isn’t a straightforward way to change them. In this article, we’ll explore how you can set custom keyboard shortcuts for window snapping on your Mac running Sequoia or higher.
Native Window Snapping on Mac
There are 3 ways to snap windows on the Mac.
- Drag the window to the corner to snap the window in its place
- Hold Option key and drag the window to its position to snap into its place
- Finally, you can use keyboard shortcuts to snap the window according to the shortcut.
The default keyboard shortcuts are:
- Left: Control + Globe + ←
- Right: Control + Globe + →
- Top: Control + Globe + ↑
- Bottom: Control + Globe + ↓
The issue is the same keyboard shortcut is used for different purposes on different apps. For example, Chrome uses the Left keyboard shortcut to scroll the webpage to the top. Right shortcut to scroll to the bottom. Top and bottom shortcuts to switch between tabs. So window snapping does not work properly when you are on such apps. Also, you can see that there’s no shortcut to fill the entire screen.
Set Custom Keyboard Shortcuts to Snap Windows on Mac
To change the keyboard shortcuts for snapping windows on Mac
- Go to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts.
- Click on All Applications and add a new shortcut by clicking the plus icon.
- Here, manually type the position name. For example, to change the Left shortcut, type Left. Here are all the positions you can type and configure. These are case-sensitive or the required shortcut will not be assigned properly, so make sure to enter them exactly.
- Left
- Right
- Top
- Bottom
- Fill
- Top Left
- Top Right
- Bottom Left
- Bottom Right
- Once entered, assign a keyboard shortcut for the entered position and click on Done.
That’s it, the keyboard shortcut has been assigned for window snapping. You can change all the remaining positions similarly.
