I recently upgraded from a 27" 14-year-old Apple Cinema Display to a 34" Dell ultrawide.
Until now, I’ve always run a simple windowing setup: Most of the time, I’m using one app, and it’s maximized to fill the whole screen. When I want to switch apps, I Cmd-Tab between them (that’s equivalent to Alt-Tab on Windows). Often, I use two apps, and I tile them side by side when I do.
But that strategy is not going to work for me on a 34" display because the individual app becomes too big to take in. I think at first that if I’m working on just one application, I’ll have it centered, full height, 2/3 or 3/4 of the width of the screen. But what goes on either edge?
How do you manage your ultrawide lifestyle?
I use the computer for basic productivity, the web and social media. I’m not a gamer and I don’t generally watch videos or listen to music on my desktop.
I already use Raycast for window management, so I don’t need pointers to software such as Raycast, Moom, or Magnet. However, if there are particular applications you love for window management on ultrawide displays, please let me know.
By the way, I searched the Internet for tips on making the transition and found reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace, where people share tips and photos of their ultrawide setups. 34" seems huge to me, but it barely qualifies for that sub. For example, check this out: a 49" display with another monitor mounted above it.
Thanks for asking this. I’ve considered getting an ultrawide, under the assumption that window management would be similar to multiple conventional models side by side.
Without having used one, the biggest downside I anticipate on a Mac (vs. on Windows or most Linux WMs) compared to multiple monitors is that the app menu is always on the far left end of the menubar, even if your window is on the far right. I don’t use the menus all that much, though.
If you are not already a dock on the side person, this is a good time to consider it! Vertical resolution is much more valuable than horizontal on an ultrawide.
Similar to the poster above, I use KM and divide the ultrawide into 3 parts. They are not equal parts. The left most panel is tighter where as the middle and right panels have the same width. That way, I have two main applications open most of the time, for instance a browser and a Word document. The left panel, which did not have a lot of width, I put chat apps, e.g. Whatsapp or X, Slack, even MPU forum.
I also have a KM button to launch the application to span the width of the middle and right panels combined. This is used when I want to focus on one app for example a Excel worksheet that will take up two panels worth. Or a game or, Xcode.
Same, although I used Keyboard Maestro for the keyboard shortcuts. Window management on my 49" ultrawide was the use case that inspired me to buy a Stream Deck. I set up left 50%, right 50%, center 50%, left 25%, right 25%, left/center/right 33%, and a few other combinations and mapped them to buttons. It was great! I eventually switched jobs and had to move to a Windows laptop for work–and don’t have permission to install the Stream Deck software–so now I use Windows 11’s built-in functions for window management, which are actually pretty good.
