Every window on one endless canvas
mielwm is a tiling window manager for macOS. Workspaces tile the way AeroSpace does, and when you lose track of something, the view pulls back to show every window at once.
Free and open source. macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon.
Workspaces
Nine workspaces, three ways to hold a window
Workspaces 1 to 9 sit side by side, so ⌥3 always lands in the same place. Each one tiles its windows, stacks them at full size like AeroSpace's accordion, or lets a window float wherever you put it.
- ⌥/Tiles split the screen, with gaps you set
- ⌥,A stack shows one window at a time
- ⌥.Floating keeps its size and place
Go to a stack and a strip at its top shows its windows and which one is in front.
The overview
Lost a window? Zoom out
⌃⌥G pulls the view back through a curved lens. Every window shows as a live picture, wherever it sits on the canvas. Type a few letters of a title or an app and press Return to go there, or ⇧Return to bring it to you.
The search field is a capsule of Liquid glass, like Spotlight. The canvas draws with Metal from ScreenCaptureKit pictures, and your windows stay ordinary macOS windows the whole time.
The overview
Trackpad
Three fingers to the next workspace
Swipe left or right and the trackpad clicks under your fingers as the workspace changes. A pill at the bottom of the display shows where you landed.
The workspaces that have windows, the current one filled. The menu bar item can show the same numbers.
Settings
A real Settings window
Eleven panes, grouped the way System Settings groups them. The search field in the sidebar finds any setting by name, the gaps redraw on a small desktop as you type, and every change reaches your windows right away.
Every setting
Coming from AeroSpace
Your keys already work
The default shortcuts are AeroSpace's wherever it has the same action. Import from AeroSpace reads your aerospace.toml and brings over the
gaps, the layout, the app rules and the key bindings, after showing you what it found.
Keyboard first
Your hands stay on the keys
Everything has a shortcut, and every shortcut can be changed in Settings. These are the ones you'll use most.
- ⌃⌥G Zoom out to every window, and back
- ⌥1 …⌥9 Go to a workspace
- ⌥⇧1 …⌥⇧9 Send the window there and follow it
- ⌥/ Tile, and flip the split
- ⌥, Stack the workspace
- ⌥. Float the window
- ⌥Tab Back to the last window, or hold for the list
- ⌥T Fill the screen, keeping the gaps
Hold ⌥ and tap Tab for the switcher. Let go to switch.
Performance
Light when you're not looking
mielwm sleeps until something changes. The overview only redraws when a window does. Measured on an M3 Pro with scripts/benchmark.sh.
- CPU at idle
- 0.01%
- Share of one core over 30 seconds
- Memory at rest
- 89 MB
- Physical footprint, 8 windows managed
- Overview, nothing moving
- 1 frame
- Drawn once in 10 seconds, down from 1200
Get mielwm
Free and MIT licensed. Quitting it puts every window back on screen.
The first time you open it
mielwm is signed but not notarized by Apple, so macOS stops the first open. You only do this once.
- 1Open mielwm.dmg and drag mielwm into Applications.
- 2Open mielwm. macOS says it can't check the developer.
- 3Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and choose Open Anyway.
- 4Allow Accessibility and Screen Recording when mielwm asks.
Or build it yourself
With the Command Line Tools installed. Xcode isn't needed.
git clone https://github.com/mielsense/mielwm.git cd mielwm scripts/build-app.sh --install