Window Manager for macOS: Achieving a Clean, Lightweight Setup

The last missing piece in my quest for a clean and lightweight Mac setup was a tiling window manager. While macOS includes a native window manager with basic window tiling capabilities, it’s limited in customization and requires reconfiguration each session.

What I Wanted

For example: I often work on LaTeX documents within a NeoVim session running inside iTerm2 (my terminal of choice — a bit old school, but it works great for me). When I compile via VimTex, the output PDF automatically opens in Skim. Ideally, I wanted a fast, easy way to arrange these two windows side-by-side — with iTerm2 occupying about 70% of the screen, and Skim taking the rest — all controlled with just a few keystrokes.

Why Tiling Window Managers on macOS?

Tiling Window Managers (TWM) are widely used on Linux distributions but aren’t natively supported in macOS beyond basic tiling via the green maximize button. This native feature is fine for simple use but falls short when managing dynamic workflows involving multiple windows that open and close automatically, or when fine-grained control is needed.

I explored popular macOS tiling managers like Yabai and Amethyst. Although Yabai is powerful, it requires disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP) for full functionality — something I preferred to avoid.

Discovering and Setting Up Aerospace

My main source of inspiration was Josean, who recently highlighted a promising new tiling window manager: Aerospace. His detailed setup guide made it easy to get started.

Setting up Aerospace was straightforward:

• I maintain a dedicated dotfiles directory.
• Added the default aerospace.toml config from the repo.
• Tweaked a few keybindings and settings to improve navigation.

A quick tip: since I sync my dotfiles using GNU Stow (see previous blog post), the config file wasn’t recognized until after running stow — an important step to remember.

My Workspace Setup

I created four custom Aerospace workspaces to organize my daily activities:

1B #Browser
2M #Mail
3S #Sounds and Music
4T #Terminal
5V #VSCode

With this setup, pressing ALT + <key> instantly switches me to a well-configured workspace and allows using Aerospace shortcuts for window resizing and positioning.

The Result: Focused Workflow for LaTeX Writing

In my T (Terminal) workspace — dedicated to iTerm2 running NeoVim — compiling LaTeX with VimTex automatically opens Skim in the same workspace, arranged neatly side-by-side. With just a few keystrokes, such as ALT + SHIFT + - or ALT + SHIFT + +, I adjust window sizes precisely until I get the perfect layout.

This workflow keeps me focused and productive without distractions — mission accomplished!

Summary:
Aerospace offers a lightweight, easy to configure tiling window manager for macOS, enabling workflow automation and window management that native macOS simply can’t match for power users like me.