Inside Paneway: Every Window in Its Place

Paneway is a small Mac utility from 1dot1 that puts windows where they belong. It snaps the window in front to halves, quarters or thirds, and it offers three ways to do it: a keyboard shortcut, a drag to the edge of the screen, or a click on a picture in the menu bar. This teardown walks through it screen by screen and explains the decisions behind each part.

The problem it solves is an old one. macOS is good at opening windows and less good at arranging them, so a working day fills with small, repeated adjustments: dragging a corner, nudging an edge, lining up two documents side by side by eye. None of it takes long, and all of it adds up. Paneway turns each of those adjustments into a single action, and it does so entirely on the Mac, with no account and no internet connection.

Drag it to an edge

The most natural way to move a window is to pick it up, so that is where Paneway starts. Drag a window by its title bar and push the pointer against the left or right edge of the screen. A glass outline appears, showing the half the window will fill. Push into a corner and the outline shrinks to a quarter; push against the top edge and it grows to fill the screen.

Nothing happens until the button is released. Let go while the outline is showing and the window snaps into place; move away from the edge first and the outline disappears, and the drag ends as an ordinary move. That preview is the important part. A snap that happened the instant the pointer touched an edge would surprise people who were only moving a window a long way, and the outline gives a moment to change course.

How close the pointer must come is adjustable. Edge margin in Settings runs from 1 to 40 pt, so a trackpad user who overshoots can keep it tight and a mouse user who prefers a wider target can loosen it. Drag to snap can also be switched off entirely, for anyone who wants windows to move only when asked. And if a snap was a mistake, Control-Option-Delete puts the window back where the drag began.

One click, one layout

Clicking the four-pane icon in the menu bar opens the panel on its Layouts tab. Every layout has a small picture, a dark block inside a frame showing the part of the screen it covers, and the pictures are grouped as Halves, Quarters, Thirds, Window and Displays. Click one and the window in front goes straight there.

The detail that makes this work is focus. An ordinary window, once clicked, would become the front window itself, and the layout would then apply to the panel rather than the document behind it. Paneway's panel does not take focus, so the app that was in front stays in front, and the footer names the window that will move. Several layouts can be tried in a row without the panel getting in the way.

Hovering a picture shows its name and shortcut at the bottom of the panel. That turns the panel into a quiet way of learning the keys: after picking Top Left a few times and seeing Control-Option-U beside it, the shortcut tends to take over.

Every layout on a key

There are nineteen shortcuts, and every one uses Control-Option. Keeping a single modifier pair means only the final key has to be remembered, and the final keys were chosen for their position rather than their letter. The arrows give the four halves. U, I, J and K sit in a square on the keyboard, so they map onto the four quarters: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right. D, F and G run left to right, so they give the left, centre and right thirds, and E and T on the row above give the left and right two thirds.

The rest cover the window as a whole. Return maximises, M almost maximises, leaving a margin of desktop showing, and C centres the window without resizing it. Delete restores the size and place the window had before Paneway moved it. The square brackets move a window to the next or previous display, and a window in a layout keeps that layout on the other screen, so a left half stays a left half.

Keyboard shortcuts are shared ground on a Mac, and another app may already own one of these combinations. The Shortcuts tab lists all nineteen with a tick box beside each, and marks any combination that is taken as In use elsewhere. Unticking a shortcut frees the key for the other app; the same layout is still one click away in the panel, or one drag away on the screen.

Room to breathe

Windows pressed edge to edge are efficient but hard to read, since borders and shadows merge into one another. Gap between windows in Settings adds between 0 and 20 pt of space around and between windows. The small diagram under the slider changes as it moves.

Gaps are easy to get slightly wrong. If each window simply shrank by a fixed amount on every side, two neighbours would sit two gaps apart while the screen edges had one, and the arrangement would look uneven. Paneway works out the spacing so that neighbouring windows always end up exactly one gap apart, the same distance as from the edge.

Every layout also fits inside the part of the screen that the menu bar and the Dock leave free, so no window slides underneath either of them. Each display is handled on its own terms, whatever its size and wherever it sits in the display arrangement.

Put everything back

Single layouts handle the moment; workspaces handle the routine. Arrange windows the way they should be, open the panel, choose Workspaces and press Save Current Arrangement. Paneway records every visible window of every open app, and saves the arrangement as Workspace 1, Workspace 2 and so on, with a count of the windows and the apps involved.

Restore puts the windows back. Matching is the hard part, because windows have no permanent identity between sessions, so Paneway matches by app and window title first, then falls back to order within each app. That keeps a named document in its place even when other windows of the same app have been opened or closed since.

Workspaces do not launch anything. Apps that are closed are simply skipped, which avoids a restore that suddenly opens a dozen programs; open the missing apps and press Restore again. The bin button beside each workspace deletes it.

One permission, used narrowly

macOS does not let one app move another app's windows freely. The only route is the Accessibility permission, and Paneway cannot move anything until it is switched on. The panel shows a Grant Accessibility button until then; pressing it brings up the macOS prompt and opens the right page of System Settings. Once Paneway is switched on in the list it notices within a couple of seconds, with no restart needed.

Accessibility is a broad permission, so it is worth being plain about its use. Paneway uses it only to read and set window positions and sizes, and it never switches the permission on by itself. Because Paneway is signed and notarized by Apple, the permission carries over to later updates. Coming from an older, unsigned download, macOS may need it granted once more: remove Paneway from the Accessibility list and add it again.

There are limits no permission can remove. Some apps only resize in steps, as Terminal does when it rounds to whole lines, and some have a minimum size, so a window can land a little short of its space. Paneway sets the exact frame and the app decides the rest. A full-screen window lives in its own space and has to leave full screen before it can move.

Built in black and white

Like the other 1dot1 Mac apps, Paneway is greyscale in light and dark mode. The icon is a square of four panes with one filled in black, and the menu bar glyph repeats it at a smaller size. The layout pictures in the panel follow the same idea: a frame for the screen and a dark block for the window, so each picture reads at a glance without a label.

It is a universal app for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later, needs the Accessibility permission to move windows, and never connects to the internet.

How to use it, feature by feature

The same instructions are in the short PDF inside the download.

Installing it

1. Unzip the download and drag Paneway.app into the Applications folder, then open it. A four-pane icon appears in the menu bar.
2. Paneway is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a normal double-click.

Granting Accessibility

1. Click the menu bar icon and press Grant Accessibility. macOS shows its own prompt and opens Privacy & Security, Accessibility.
2. Switch Paneway on in the list. It notices within a couple of seconds; there is no need to restart it.
3. After installing an update, if windows stop moving, remove Paneway from the list with the minus button and add it again with the plus button, or switch it off and on.

Keyboard shortcuts

1. Halves: Control-Option with Left, Right, Up or Down Arrow.
2. Quarters: Control-Option-U top left, I top right, J bottom left, K bottom right.
3. Thirds: Control-Option-D left third, F centre third, G right third, E left two thirds, T right two thirds.
4. Window: Control-Option-Return maximise, M almost maximise, C centre, Delete restore the previous size and place.
5. Displays: Control-Option-] next display, Control-Option-[ previous display.
6. To switch a shortcut off, open the panel, choose Shortcuts and untick it. In use elsewhere means another app already owns that key.

Drag to snap

1. Drag a window by its title bar and push the pointer against the left or right edge of the screen. A glass outline shows the half it will fill.
2. Push into a corner for a quarter, or against the top edge to maximise.
3. Let go while the outline is showing. Move away from the edge first to cancel.
4. In Settings, Drag to snap turns this on or off, and Edge margin sets how close the pointer must be, from 1 to 40 pt.
5. Control-Option-Delete puts a snapped window back where the drag began.

The layout panel

1. Click the menu bar icon. The Layouts tab shows every layout, grouped as Halves, Quarters, Thirds, Window and Displays.
2. Click a picture and the window in front goes straight there. The app you were using stays in front.
3. Hover a picture to see its name and shortcut at the bottom of the panel.
4. Right-click the menu bar icon for a short menu: Drag to Snap, Open at Login, About and Quit.

Gaps, the menu bar and the Dock

1. In Settings, drag Gap between windows to add 0 to 20 pt of space around and between windows.
2. Neighbouring windows always end up exactly one gap apart.
3. Layouts always fit inside the space the menu bar and the Dock leave free, on every display.

Workspaces

1. Arrange the windows, open the panel, choose Workspaces and press Save Current Arrangement.
2. Every visible window of every open app is recorded, and the workspace is saved as Workspace 1, Workspace 2 and so on.
3. Press Restore to put the windows back. They are matched by app and title first, then in order.
4. Closed apps are skipped; open them and press Restore again. The bin button deletes a workspace.

Open at Login

1. Tick Open at Login in Settings, or in the right-click menu, to have Paneway ready from the moment the Mac starts.

If something does not happen

1. Nothing moves at all: Accessibility is off. The panel shows Grant Accessibility. If it is already on after switching from an older download, remove and re-add Paneway in the list.
2. A shortcut does nothing: another app owns that combination. The Shortcuts tab marks it In use elsewhere; untick it and use the panel or a drag instead.
3. A window lands a little short of its space: the app resizes in steps or has a minimum size. Paneway sets the exact frame and the app decides the rest.
4. Drag to snap does not trigger between two displays: where two screens meet, the pointer passes to the next screen. Use the outer edges, or a shortcut.
5. Restore says there is nothing to restore: Paneway only remembers windows it has moved since it was opened.
6. A full-screen window does not move: macOS full screen is its own space. Leave full screen first.

Built-in window tiling and where Paneway fits

Since macOS 15 Sequoia, a Mac can tile windows by itself: drag a window to a screen edge, or choose Window, then Move & Resize. Stage Manager takes a different approach and groups windows rather than arranging them side by side.

Paneway is for people who arrange windows all day. It adds thirds and two-thirds, a keyboard shortcut for every layout, gaps between windows, a key to move a window to the next display and workspaces that put a whole arrangement back, and it runs on macOS 13 and 14 too.

Get Paneway

Paneway is available on 1dot1 as a single download, with the guide, a README and the licence inside the zip.

Get It Now