Tested: Moom is my new Mac window management app

I’m a self-confessed neat freak in both physical and virtual worlds, so I like to keep my Mac app windows organised. I previously did so using Stay, but when the developer seemingly abandoned it I switched to Moom.

The app lets me instantly restore all my app windows to my preferred sizes and positions, whether I’m using my MacBook Pro in standalone mode or hooked up to my external monitor …

My Mac window management

I use my Mac in four main ways, each one requiring different apps in use, and a different window layout.

The first of these is when I’m using my Mac on its own, mostly for leisure use – web browsing, messaging apps, and perhaps some light writing when I’m away from home. The remaining three setups are with the Mac hooked-up to my 49-inch ultra-widescreen monitor, with three types of usage.

Leisure use when I want more screen real-estate, which is mostly for photo and video editing.

Before I start work each day, I have prep time, which is when I catch up on the overnight tech news so that I’m ready to hit the ground running. Here I have an RSS reader and a couple of social media feeds side-by-side.

Finally, once I start work, my two main windows are Safari for source material and Chrome for WordPress, with our Slack chatroom alongside these. My RSS and X feeds sit partially-covered in the background.

The way that Stay worked is it would automatically restore my windows whenever I connected to, or disconnected from, my monitor. The automated nature of this was great, and I could use multiple desktops for my different usage scenarios, but it did mean a little manual reorganising – like when I switched from prep to work mode.

But Moom is actually an improvement.

Moom

I remember decades ago someone working out how many features Microsoft Word had, of which I used probably a dozen regularly, and a few more occasionally. Moom feels a little like that! It’s a hugely powerful windows-management tool, and I use essentially one feature.

For example, it offers automatic window sizing and positioning. You can send one app to the bottom-left of your screen, for example, with others top-left, top-right, and bottom-right. Or you can add vertically-centered positions to display six different apps.

You can move apps to one corner, one side, the center of the screen, or make it full-screen. You can shrink and grow apps.

You can create a template with fixed sizes and positions for different apps, without specifying which apps, and then drop an app into any of your preset slots.

You can move and resize background windows without bringing them to the foreground.

You can create use keyboard shortcuts to control app windows instead of your trackpad or mouse.

You can even do things like disable the standard Mac full-screen window button if you find yourself hitting it when you intended to minimize a window.

There are also a ton of built-in templates.

Or you can just select a standard layout for a given number of apps.

Personally, I do almost none of these things. I exclusively use Moom from the menubar, and my menu looks like this:

I simply select one of my four standard window setups, and that’s it.

Pricing and conclusions

Moom costs $15, including updates for one year. After that, you can continue using the existing version, or upgrade to the next full edition for roughly half-price.

To me, this is a no-brainer even if you too use only one of its features.

An older version of Moom is available from the Mac App Store, while the latest is available from the developer’s website here.