Best Magnet Alternatives for Mac in 2026, Free and Paid

What Magnet does, and why people look elsewhere

Magnet snaps windows into halves, thirds and quarters. Drag a window to a corner for a quarter, to a side for a half, to the top to maximize, or use a keyboard shortcut. It works on up to six external displays and is sold only through the Mac App Store, currently $4.99 in the US store. It needs macOS 13 or later.

Most people who search for a Magnet alternative want one of two things. They want the same snapping for free, or they want something Magnet does not do, like saved layouts. Four of the seven tools below cost nothing, so we start there.

Rectangle

Best for: free keyboard snapping

Rectangle is the default answer, and for good reason. It is free, open source under the MIT license, and gives you shortcuts for halves, thirds, quarters and corners. Dragging a window to an edge or corner snaps it too, like Magnet. It runs on macOS 10.15 and later on Intel and Apple Silicon, and version 2.0.2 shipped on September 27, 2026.

Price: Free. Rectangle Pro is a separate $9.99 app with a 10-day trial.
Strengths: Covers what most people used Magnet for. Actively maintained. Pro adds custom snap areas and workspace arrangements if you outgrow it.
Limitations: Manages one window at a time. No saved layouts in the free version.

If you want Magnet without paying, install this first. Most people never need anything else.

macOS built-in tiling

Best for: drag-to-snap with nothing to install

Magnet's main trick is now part of macOS. Since Sequoia 15, you can drag a window to the left or right edge, a corner, or the menu bar and it tiles. Holding Option while dragging makes it faster. Fn+Control+arrow keys snap from the keyboard, and the Window menu has arrangements that place two or three windows at once.

Price: Free, part of macOS
Strengths: Zero setup. Settings for edge dragging and margins live in System Settings, Desktop & Dock.
Limitations: Requires Sequoia or later. No custom sizes or custom snap areas.

If you are on Sequoia and only snap to halves, you may not need a third-party app at all. Our Sequoia tiling post covers its gaps.

Loop

Best for: mouse users who want something faster than dragging

Loop keeps the mouse but drops the drag. Hold a trigger key, nudge the cursor in a direction, and a radial menu chooses where the window goes. You can also bind shortcuts for specific positions.

Price: Free and open source, GPLv3
Strengths: Quick once learned. Install with brew install loop. Version 1.4.2 shipped in January 2026.
Limitations: Needs macOS 13 or later, and some features need macOS 15. You get it from GitHub or Homebrew.

Raycast window management

Best for: people who already run Raycast

Raycast includes window commands on its free plan: halves, thirds, quarters, maximize, center, move to another display and restore. Bind global hotkeys to the ones you use and you have Magnet's keyboard side without another app.

Price: Free for the built-in commands. Custom window management commands need Pro at $10 a month.
Strengths: No extra app if Raycast is already your launcher.
Limitations: Command and hotkey driven. Installing a launcher just for window snapping is overkill.

BetterSnapTool

Best for: the closest thing to Magnet, for less

BetterSnapTool from folivora.ai, the makers of BetterTouchTool, does what Magnet does. Drag a window to a corner, the top or a side and it snaps. On top of that you can draw custom snap areas anywhere on the screen, and move or resize a window by holding modifier keys and moving the pointer, without clicking.

Price: $1.99 on the Mac App Store, with in-app purchases
Strengths: Custom snap areas, multi-monitor support, runs on macOS 10.12 and later. An Apple Editors' Choice pick.
Limitations: The last App Store update was version 1.9.12 in September 2024, so updates are slow.

Moom

Best for: saved layouts, the thing Magnet lacks

Moom costs more than Magnet but solves a different problem. You can save a layout of several apps and windows and restore it later, which is handy when a laptop moves between a desk monitor and its own screen. It also has a pop-up palette on the green button, an on-screen grid, snap zones and full keyboard control.

Price: $15 direct with at least a year of updates, free trial. The older Moom Classic is still on the Mac App Store.
Strengths: Saved layouts, up to 61 custom palette actions, action chains. Runs on macOS 10.13 and later.
Limitations: More to configure than Magnet. Not the pick if you only want free snapping.

TileOrg

Best for: people who juggle several projects at once

Disclosure first: this is our app, and it is the most expensive one here. If you want to snap a window to half the screen, take Rectangle or the built-in tiling and keep your money.

TileOrg is for a different problem. Magnet positions windows one at a time. TileOrg groups them. You make a named project, assign its terminal, editor and browser windows, and arrange them into panes once: single, horizontal split, vertical split or grid. ⌃⌥1 to ⌃⌥9 switches projects and the whole set swaps in under 100 ms. Projects and window assignments survive a reboot.

It also detects coding agents. TileOrg watches the processes under each terminal window and picks up Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, aider and opencode, shows their status in the menu bar, and ⌃⌥A jumps to the one that has waited longest.

Price: $29 one-time, 3 devices, 30-day trial without an account
Strengths: Project grouping, per-project layouts, session persistence, agent tracking. Native Swift/AppKit, 3.2 MB.
Limitations: macOS 14+ only. No drag-to-snap and no automatic tiling. Not on the Mac App Store because the sandbox forbids the Accessibility API.

It runs fine next to a snapping tool. Read TileOrg vs Magnet for a direct comparison.

Comparison table

Tool	Price	Drag to snap	Saved layouts or groups	Where to get it
Magnet	$4.99	Yes	No	Mac App Store
Rectangle	Free	Yes	Pro only	Website, Homebrew
macOS tiling	Free	Yes	No	Built in
Loop	Free	Radial menu	No	GitHub, Homebrew
Raycast	Free, Pro $10/mo	No	No	Website
BetterSnapTool	$1.99	Yes	No	Mac App Store
Moom	$15	Snap zones	Saved layouts	Website, App Store
TileOrg	$29 once	No	Named projects	Website, Homebrew

Which one should you pick?

You want Magnet for free. Rectangle if you like shortcuts. The built-in tiling if you drag and you are on Sequoia.

You want Magnet's feel for less money. BetterSnapTool at $1.99, knowing updates are infrequent.

You want to restore the same arrangement every morning. Moom, or see our guide to saving window layouts on Mac.

Your problem is too many projects, not too many windows. TileOrg. If you run coding agents side by side, the parallel Claude Code guide shows how.

For a broader look that includes automatic tilers like Amethyst and yabai, read the best macOS window managers in 2026. Coming from Rectangle instead? There is a separate Rectangle alternatives list.