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Is there a way to stop MacOS resizing my app windows?

Silly John Fatty

Silly John Fatty

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 6, 2012
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I move my Finder window somewhere (and it has exactly the size that I want it to have), and suddenly it's resized to something much larger, to fit the screen somewhere.

I find this terribly annoying …

I disabled some of the settings around this, but it didn't help. I hope there's a fix. What the hell was Apple thinking?
 
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Silly John Fatty said:
I move my Finder window somewhere (and it has exactly the size that I want it to have), and suddenly it's resized to something much larger, to fit the screen somewhere.

I find this terribly annoying …

I disabled some of the settings around this, but it didn't help. I hope there's a fix. What the hell was Apple thinking?
Click to expand...
Check System Preferences > Dock and uncheck "Double-click a window's title bar to…". Change. to "Do Nothing"
 
If I recall, it’s in Settings under Desktop and Dock. Look for the settings about resizing windows dragged to the edges and corners of the screen. Turn them off, and you’re set.

I’ve done that and IF I want my windows to tile or resize, I hold down the keyboard shortcut. Now it’s much better.
 
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Under Desktop & Dock, then uncheck Tile by dragging windows to screen edges.

I hate this feature with a passion and I am glad it can be turned off.
 
I had those features deactivated, but it kept happening. Now after looking back in this thread, I noticed it’s not been happening anymore. I think it’s fixed!
 
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Bungaree.Chubbins said:
If I recall, it’s in Settings under Desktop and Dock. Look for the settings about resizing windows dragged to the edges and corners of the screen. Turn them off, and you’re set.

I’ve done that and IF I want my windows to tile or resize, I hold down the keyboard shortcut. Now it’s much better.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I just updated from 14.7 to 15.1, and windows were moving all over the place. I thought I'd come across some sort of weird bug!

Silly John Fatty said:
What the hell was Apple thinking?
Click to expand...
Indeed. I can't believe that this was turned on by default.
 
Last edited:
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This issue kept reappearing now for me. With dozens of other issues … I'll never comprehend how Apple has managed to give itself a "premium" image. My only explanation is that everything else is even worse. But the current state of things in the Apple world is far from anything premium, it feels quite cheap with such simple bugs and performance issues all the time.
 
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I got tired of this a long time ago and started using Stay. I can move my windows around all I want to or the system can do it, and with a click on a menu bar icon everything goes back to my default location. Well worth 15 bucks.

Cordless Dog: Stay

cordlessdog.com cordlessdog.com
 
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StellarVixen said:
Apparently, many folks wanted this. Those who switched over from Windows missed this feature. So, I guess Apple listened to them
Click to expand...

Then at least don't make it default when I'm running this Mac account for 15+ years already. Making it default to someone who's been using Windows before is alright. And the next problem is that it doesn't even work properly.
 
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Silly John Fatty said:
I move my Finder window somewhere (and it has exactly the size that I want it to have), and suddenly it's resized to something much larger, to fit the screen somewhere.

I find this terribly annoying …

I disabled some of the settings around this, but it didn't help. I hope there's a fix. What the hell was Apple thinking?
Click to expand...
Is a definitely a bug. I tried the suggestions above, partially they work other times they wont. The windows keep resizing automatically back to previous setting after moving them to another position away from the edges. That feature is a nice idea, but works inefficiently. Whats happening at Apple, they seemingly keep building in new half-baked features? Either do it 100% right or let it be.
 
amaze1499 said:
Is a definitely a bug. I tried the suggestions above, partially they work other times they wont. The windows keep resizing automatically back to previous setting after moving them to another position away from the edges. That feature is a nice idea, but works inefficiently. Whats happening at Apple, they seemingly keep building in new half-baked features? Either do it 100% right or let it be.
Click to expand...
Same problem and I'm using 15.3 beta 3, so it hasn't been fixed. I use this program, which keeps my main applications in their place:

Cordless Dog: Stay

cordlessdog.com cordlessdog.com

But it doesn't do anything for a Preview window that gets too close to the menu bar. When that happens, watch out!
 
This kept bugging me so I had this fix it. ChatGPT helped me and fixed it for me.

It first gave me these Terminal commands that didn't help, but were maybe part of the chain:

Code: 
defaults delete com.apple.finder
killall Finder

Then, after nothing changed, it gave me these here and then it was finally fixed:

Code: 
rm ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.finder.savedState/*
killall Finder

My Finder windows didn't just resize but also always popped up in one specific place. I resized them the way I want them now and placed them in the spot where I want them to open, and so far it's working. We'll see how it goes in the long run. But for an almost 6000 € setup, it does feel quite trashy. Well, trashy, that's what Apple is I guess. I'm not sure what these guys are doing and whether they're doing anything at all. I guess they're just concentrated on making more profit by creating lower quality products.

Never I would have thought 20+ years ago that Apple would become a budget company one day. I hope someone new joins the game soon, because as consumers, we barely have any choice right now.
 
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I still have this thing happening even though I sometimes use certain Terminal commands to reset things … this is SO TERRIBLY ANNOYING!

Has anyone found out why this is happening or how to fix it once for all?

I also changed display (went from Studio Display to Pro Display) and it's still happening. This is a 10.000 € setup, what the hell is wrong with Apple resizing my Finder windows constantly? 🥲
 
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