Yabai — Tiling Window Management

Is anyone running Yabai? Maybe I spend too much time on r/unixporn, but I’m contemplating trying it.

Have you tried Amethyst? I would go there first before disabling SIP for Yabai.

I’ve been using Amethyst for quite a while and I really like it. However it took me a while to:

  1. master and adapt the shortcuts;
  2. find out which layouts work best for my uses (Tall and Two Pane for the 13’ laptop, Widescreen tall and 3-Column for the 27’ external)
  3. set the proper exclusions (some apps and windows were simply not designed to work in tile mode and need to be included in an “always float” list);
  4. get used to keeping one or two spaces open at all times (moving windows to a separate space is only one keyboard shortcut away, creating them is not and the script workaround is clumsy).

After that, it felt so fast to manage Windows via the keyboard that I never stopped using Amethyst.

Yabai has a few differences and even some more commands under the hood (create and close spaces being the most lacking in Amethyst). But I don’t see there a reason that makes disabling SIP worth it.

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Was a hardcore Yabai user for a while. I think it’s more performant on lower-end devices — on my old 2017 i5 MBA, it performed a lot better than Amethyst; on my M1 MBP, the difference is negligible.

I’ve switched back to a non-tiled workflow cause eventually I landed on Raycast which allows you to map keybinds to window management shortcuts, and I feel like my current workflow of putting windows in thirds/halves/etc while still letting them overlap is more flexible and fits my workflow better.

If you’ve never tried Yabai, I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot, provided you know what you’re doing around terminal etc.

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Thank you for mentioning Raycast. I’ve been trying the past few days and I’m liking it. It’s been replacing Alfred, Moom, and Paste.