Add Windows Aero Snap Feature to the Mac with Moom

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[Nathan Parker]

A friend of mine recently switched back to a Mac after using a Windows PC in college. One feature he missed on his Mac was Aero Snap where he can drag two windows to the sides of his screen and have them snap into taking up half of the screen space, allowing him to quickly compare two windows at once.

While Macs offer the ability to run two full-screen apps at once in a split-screen view, the identical Aero Snap feature on Windows for app windows not running in full-screen mode isn’t available yet. However, with Moom, a simple little app about $10, that feature and many additional features are available.

Moom allows Mac users to snap two windows to take up half of the screen size with a similar drag and drop feel to Aero Snap, as well as resting one’s cursor on the green full-screen mode button offers additional window positioning options. There’s also a way to move windows around to different positions using keystrokes.

I’ve found Moom offers all of the functionality of Aero Snap in Windows and plenty more powerful features for managing app windows around on my Mac. I plan to get quite a bit of use out of the app, and I’d highly recommend it for both Windows switchers to the Mac, as well as Mac users wanting more powerful options to arrange app windows.

I do want to mention that due to some of the more locked-down security features in Mojave and Catalina (I’m still on Mojave but will be upgrading to Catalina shortly), I found I needed to remove and re-add and re-enable Moom to Accessibility Privacy under System Preferences, plus I also added and enabled it to Full Disk Access. Once I re-started Moom after doing this, it has worked flawlessly, even when rebooting my Mac.

Check out Moom today and get more power out of managing your app windows!

Nathan Parker

• This topic was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Nathan Parker. Reason: Typo double and

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DrBonzo

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Nathan, Is it possible, with “Moom”, to split the screen vertically, so one can see the full width of each window when both are open in ‘full screen’?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Nathan Parker

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OscarCP wrote:

Nathan, Is it possible, with “Moom”, to split the screen vertically, so one can see the full width of each window when both are open in ‘full screen’?

I believe so. Are you wanting the two windows on top of each other where they take up the full width of the screen when split instead of taking up the full height?

Moom can do that and plenty more. It can do four windows snapped at once, etc. It’s super powerful.

Nathan Parker

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Nathan: The two windows on top of each other. I already can get them side by side without anything more than what is already in the standard Mac GUI. But when I also have one, or both of them in full screen mode, only the left half of one, or both windows is visible.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Moom will do that functionality in windowed mode, but I don’t believe it’ll do it to two full-screen apps due to the way Apple has full-screen mode set. It’s possible I’m overlooking it though. I did send this to Moom’s developers. Also, there is a free trial of Moom before one pays the $10 (it allows for 100 free window moves).

Nathan Parker

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OscarCP

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Greetings from Many Tricks…

First, thanks for the writeup! Second, relative to the comment thread on full screen windows: A full screen window is not a normal window as far as the macOS  goes, and so Moom cannot do anything with them: Apple doesn’t provide any information for us to work with, and a full screen window (by Apple’s definition) takes over the screen.

That’s one reason I never use full screen windows, only screen-maximized windows. (Plus, having two displays, it seems incredibly stupid that the one is blacked out just because I full screened a window on the other one.)

-rob.

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Hi Rob!

Thanks for chiming in!

In terms of full-screen windows, that was my thought (that Apple had it locked down where third-party developers cannot work with them). Thanks for clarifying.

In terms of Moom itself working with standard windows, it’s been performing very well for me. I can’t believe I’ve gone this long using a Mac without it! I don’t know how I could use a Mac without it now. It’s been a huge help in increasing my productivity.

Nathan Parker

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In case I did not express myself clearly and may have caused some confusion: I meant snapping two windows together, one on top of the other and both stretching to the fullest extent from left to right across the screen. Of course, each can be only as high as half the height of the screen, at most. That would be quite OK with me, as long as I could scroll each wiNdow independently of the other.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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OscarCP wrote:

In case I did not express myself clearly and may have caused some confusion: I meant snapping two windows together, one on top of the other and both stretching to the fullest extent from left to right across the screen.

As long as you’re doing it in traditional windowed mode and not the macOS full-screen mode, then yes, Moom does this, and it does it beautifully easy. Simply rest the cursor on the full-screen mode button, then click the icon to send the window to the top or bottom half of the screen. I’m attaching an image of two windows I snapped using Moom. If this is what you’re looking for, then this is exactly what you need (it can do that and a whole lot more).

Nathan Parker

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