Best tips for making full use of multiple monitors?

[Cromulent]

I have a Mac Studio with three monitors. One is 4k, and the other two are 1200p. I regularly use them but find that maximising one window on each screen means losing a lot of space.

How do you manage multiple monitors, and are there any macOS tools that help you?

 

[chabig]

Did you come to Mac from Windows, where maximizing is still common? We don't do that on Macs because what matters to us is whether a window is big enough to display the content. If it displays what you need, there is no reason to make the window fill a screen because there will be lots of empty space, as you mentioned. Just think of the desktop space like a real desktop. If you spread lots of papers around a real desktop you can do the same with three monitors. Personally I find having that much information distracting most of the time.

Macs have the best tools for window management: Exposé, Mission Control, Spaces, and Stage Manager. Play around with these to find what best suits you.

 

[Cromulent]

Did you come to Mac from Windows, where maximizing is still common? We don't do that on Macs because what matters to us is whether a window is big enough to display the content. If it displays what you need, there is no reason to make the window fill a screen because there will be lots of empty space, as you mentioned. Just think of the desktop space like a real desktop. If you spread lots of papers around a real desktop you can do the same with three monitors. Personally I find having that much information distracting most of the time.

Macs have the best tools for window management: Exposé, Mission Control, Spaces, and Stage Manager. Play around with these to find what best suits you.

Thank you. I came from Linux but was used to using a tiling window manager (if you are not sure what that is, this article explains it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager). I'd love to use something like that on my Mac.

 

[chabig]

I am not aware of any tiling window managers for macOS. The system itself does allow tiling two windows side by side, but that's the extent of it.

Use apps in Split View on Mac

On your Mac, work in two apps side by side at the same time.

support.apple.com

 

[Mr Screech]

Maybe you can try something like 'spectacle'.
It allows you to resize windows in halfs or thirds horizontally or vertically. And then grow or shrink them with another shortcut.

There might be better alternatives by now, but it's what I'm using the last few years.

 

[Cromulent]

Maybe you can try something like 'spectacle'.
It allows you to resize windows in halfs or thirds horizontally or vertically. And then grow or shrink them with another shortcut.

There might be better alternatives by now, but it's what I'm using the last few years.

That sounds good. Thank you!

 

[sdwaltz]

Thank you. I came from Linux but was used to using a tiling window manager (if you are not sure what that is, this article explains it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager). I'd love to use something like that on my Mac.

An app called Magnet is likely your answer. I love it.

 

[m0nkeyb0y]

I have 2 (sometimes 3) 32"x4k monitors. I use BetterTouchTool to make some custom keyboard and Magic Trackpad shortcuts: move to other screen, maximize to left half, maximize to right half, maximize, show desktop, show app windows (App Exposé), Mission Control. So I have a dozen different apps and such open, and it's not too bad switching between them all, different monitors, different desktops

 

[orionquest]

Macs have the best tools for window management: Exposé, Mission Control, Spaces, and Stage Manager. Play around with these to find what best suits you.

Not really, might be good at flipping between different sets of windows or apps. But not really managing the space or areas of screens themselves. Apple introduced some screen split feature a while ago, but like many things Apple does they don't revise this feature or give it better features to make it more usable.

I have a triple monitor setup, but luckily for my needs I keep 2 apps open on 1 screen (mail & calendar) just manual adjust the size they take up) and the main monitor I just focus on 1 app. The other screen is for another computer, and switch the main monitor between when needed.

Another recommended tool would be Divvy to slice up screen space.

Download Divvy for Mac | MacUpdate

Download the latest version of Divvy for Mac for free. Read 47 user reviews and compare with similar apps on MacUpdate.

www.macupdate.com

If you go to the link, you'll find other similar software maybe something will fit the OP's needs.