The Window Tiling Aggravation
For years, macOS users relied on third-party apps like Magnet or Rectangle to snap windows to the edges of the screen. With recent updates (specifically macOS Sequoia and later), Apple built “Window Tiling” directly into the operating system. Now, if you grab a window by its title bar and drag it near the edge or corner of your screen, macOS will display a grey outline and automatically resize the window to fill exactly half or a quarter of your display. While some users love this, others find it incredibly disruptive. If you are just trying to move a window slightly out of the way, having it suddenly maximize or snap to a rigid grid completely destroys your carefully arranged desktop layout.
How to Disable Automatic Window Tiling
You can turn off this magnetic snapping behavior completely within the macOS System Settings, restoring the traditional free-floating window experience.
1. Click the Apple logo () in the extreme top-left corner of your menu bar.
2. Select System Settings.
3. Scroll down the left-hand navigation sidebar and click on Desktop & Dock.
4. Scroll down the main pane until you find the section labelled Windows.
5. Locate the toggle switch labelled Tile by dragging windows to screen edges.
6. Click the toggle switch to turn it Off.
Once disabled, you can drag windows anywhere on your screen—even partially off the edge of the monitor—and they will remain exactly the size and shape you set them to, without macOS attempting to automatically reformat them.
Alternative: Using the Option Key
If you don’t want to turn the feature off completely because you occasionally like to tile windows, you can change its behavior so it doesn’t happen automatically by default.
In the same “Windows” settings section, leave the main toggle ON, but look directly below it. You will see an option labelled Hold [Option] key while dragging to tile. If you check this box, dragging a window normally will not trigger the tiling effect. The window will only snap to the edges if you actively hold down the `Option` (⌥) key on your keyboard while dragging the mouse. This gives you the best of both worlds: free movement by default, with tiling available on demand.