Maximising leaves thin strip of desktop still visible?

[shpongled]

for some reason whenever i maximise anything, there is always a thin strip of desktop (or underlying windows) left visible along the left side of the screen. it is never anywhere else, always on the left - about the width of one of the traffic light window control buttons. very very frustrating as i then have to manually drag/adjust the window to cover that. no matter what app i'm maximising, it always happens. it even happens when using window management tools such as spectacle/magnet/etc, where you drag the window to the top of the screen or use a key combination to get windows to fill the screen.

anyone have any ideas as to why this would be happening? it's like the "usable screen size" is set to slightly smaller width than my actual display, so that when windows "stretch to fit screen width", they stop a bit short.

 

[Gregg2]

Where is your Dock?

You don't really have to do anything. You could just accept it and move on.

 

[DeltaMac]

Macs have never had a "maximize" function - not one that has the same effect as on a Windows system, for example.
There's "Zoom". Is that what you mean? That simply toggles to fill screen, usually top-to-bottom, but sides might not be affected much, if at all. It's really a toggle to go to some pre-set size (which might be smaller than the existing window), then press zoom again to return to the previous window size.
Or Full Screen -- you get that when you click the green widget in the top left corner of any window -- also not the same as Maximize on Windows, but gives you a new screen with only the window that you are presently using, filling the screen completely --- also not the same as "maximize"

 

[Gregg2]

And holding down Option while clicking the green dot has a different effect, similar to Zoom, I think

 

[shpongled]

thanks for replies. yeah i probably shouldn't have said maximise well aware that mac os doesn't do maximise in the way that windows does, but that isn't what i'm referring to.

i've realised it's related to the dock position - i have the dock set to autohide and there is a thin strip along that side of the screen that stops windows from resizing beyond that point. this applies when using the green zoom button with option, or when using third-party window management apps such as magnet/spectacle/etc. in every case, windows won't resize across this boundary. this even happens if i try to manually resize by dragging - it stops at this invisible boundary near the edge of the screen, with whatever is underneath still visible. the only way to cover it up is to MOVE the window so it lines up with the screen edge on that side and then resize the opposite edge (where there is no hidden dock) to cover the gap created. if i move the (hidden) dock to another side, the same thing happens there. very annoying.

 

[warp9]

This was driving me crazy too until I found BetterTouchTool. I manually resized a window to exactly fit the screen, created a "snap area" from that window and re-assigned the green "maximize" button to trigger the snap area. Now all windows behave just like Windows 10 maximize and no weird pixel strips anywhere.

 

[Gregg2]

So you threw away all your Sominex...

 

[chris4565]

In the past I always wished there was the opportunity to max windows like in Windows until I found a solution online: Hold down "option", hover with your arrow over either corner of your window (so you get the diagonal double-sided arrow) and then double click.

 

[sorgo †]

In the past I always wished there was the opportunity to max windows like in Windows until I found a solution online: Hold down "option", hover with your arrow over either corner of your window (so you get the diagonal double-sided arrow) and then double click.

Cool tip; thank you!