As someone that flips between different computers, I often find myself trying to do things on one platform that are habit on the other but don’t work the same way. Magnet is an app for macOS that brings one of my favourite Windows 10 features to the Mac.
One of the best things about both Windows 10 and macOS is their integration of virtual desktops. Being able to have a desktop set aside for messaging (email on one side, Hipchat on the other), my calendar on another and Evernote with a browser on a third desktop makes it easy to stay focussed on a task and not have too many things in front of me at one time.
When I’m using Windows 10, I often use the Snap Assist feature. I simply drag a window to one of the display’s edges and it automatically resizes and uses half the screen. I then do the same with another app on the other side and I have two, evenly sized windows adjacent to each other.
macOS lets you do more or less the same thing but it takes more effort. They call their feature Split Screen and it works by making one program full screen – which hides the Dock, Menu bar and other desktop distractions – and ten placing another app alongside it, assuming the application supports the feature.
Today, quite by chance, I opened the macOS App Store and one of the featured apps was Magnet. It’s developed by CrowdCafe. I almost clicked past it but something about it grabbed my interest. For $1.49 it promised to give me the equivalent of Snap Assist on the Mac.
It took me about five seconds to decide to spend the buck and a half at the App Store. It required OS X 10.9 or later and a 64-bit processor.
Like Microsoft’s Snap Assist, Magnet lest you assign keyboard shortcuts or simply drag an application widow to either an edge or corner of the display. Edges give you side by side views, corners allow you to tile applications, which each on taking up a quarter of the screen.
it works much like Snap Assist.
I find the macOS approach to managing virtual desktops easier to use than the Windows 10 approach. but I’ve always wished macOS had something like Snap Assist to make windows management easier.
Magnet fills that gap.
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