Stage Manager alternatives for Mac

What Stage Manager does

Stage Manager arrived in macOS 13 Ventura. It puts the app you're using in the middle of the screen and lines up your recently used apps as thumbnails along the left edge. Click a thumbnail and that app takes centre stage. You can also group several apps into a set that you switch to together.

Its settings are short:

• Show recent apps in Stage Manager
• Show windows from an application: All at Once or One at a Time
• Show Items: On Desktop or In Stage Manager
• Show Desktop: Always on Wallpaper Click, or Only in Stage Manager on Click

Some people love it. Others find the thumbnail strip eats width they'd rather give to windows, or that it gets in the way when they want two apps visible together.

How to turn Stage Manager off

Either of these works:

1. Open System Settings > Desktop & Dock, find the Desktop & Stage Manager section, and turn off Stage Manager.
2. Click Control Center in the menu bar and click Stage Manager to toggle it. You can also add it to the menu bar through Control Center > Edit Controls.

On Ventura the switch is in the same Desktop & Dock pane, in a section labelled Windows & Apps.

If you can't turn it on again later, check that Displays have separate Spaces is on under Desktop & Dock > Mission Control. Stage Manager needs it.

The alternatives

macOS tiling, for two windows side by side

On macOS 15 Sequoia and later, drag a window to the left or right edge, or press Fn⌃← or Fn⌃→. Fn⌃⇧ with an arrow arranges the active window and the one behind it as a pair. It's free, already there, and covers most "I just want two things next to each other" days. Details in how to tile windows on a Mac.

Mission Control and Spaces, for separate desktops

If you used Stage Manager's sets to keep projects apart, Spaces do that too. Press ⌃↑, or swipe up with four fingers, to open Mission Control and add a desktop there. Put each project's windows on its own Space and swipe left or right to switch.

A tip from the same settings section: turning off Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use keeps your Spaces in a fixed order, which makes switching predictable.

Snapping apps, for exact placement

Rectangle and Loop are free and put the focused window exactly where you say: halves, thirds, corners and more, from a shortcut or a drag. They work on older macOS versions that don't have built-in tiling. See Ribbon vs Rectangle and Ribbon vs Loop.

A grid tiler, if you want everything visible

AeroSpace, yabai and Amethyst arrange every window into a grid automatically. Nothing overlaps, and nothing hides, but each new window makes the others smaller.

A scrolling window manager, if you keep many windows open

This is the closest thing to what Stage Manager was trying to do, without the thumbnails taking up room. A scrolling window manager lines windows up as columns on a strip wider than the screen. The window you're working on stays big; the others wait to the left and right, a keystroke or a swipe away.

In Ribbon:

• ⌃⌥← and ⌃⌥→ move focus, and the strip slides.
• Set "Centre the focused column" to Always and your current window stays in the middle, a bit like Stage Manager's centre stage.
• A strip indicator with each column's app icon appears while you move around. Hold ⌃⌥ to keep it up and click an icon to jump.
• Stacks and tabbed columns group related windows, which covers some of what sets were for.

You can see how it moves in the live demo. On a laptop, also read the MacBook guide, since screen width matters even more there.

Side by side

If a strip fits how you work, Ribbon is $9.99 once for macOS 13 Ventura and later. All sales are final (terms), so watch the demo before you buy.