Yabai and skhd - Advanced Tiling Window Manager

This page is still a WIP!

Quick intro

Overview: Yabai is a tiling window manager for macOS that, when combined with skhd (a hotkey daemon), offers a powerful, keyboard-driven window management experience.

Key Features:

• Automatic window tiling using a binary space partitioning algorithm.
• Extensive customization through configuration files.
• Control over windows, spaces, and displays via command-line interface.
• Custom keyboard shortcuts for window manipulation with skhd.

Considerations:

• Requires installation via Homebrew and configuration through dotfiles.
• May require additional permissions and setup steps on macOS.

Ideal For: Power users seeking a tiling window manager experience similar to i3 on Linux, with extensive keyboard control and customization.

Comparison of different tools

Feature / Tool	Slate	Yabai + skhd	Rectangle
Ease of Use	Moderate (requires scripting)	Advanced (requires setup)	High (user-friendly)
Customization	High	Very High	Moderate
Tiling Support	Manual	Automatic	None
Multi-Monitor Support	Yes	Yes	Limited
Active Maintenance	No	Yes	Yes
Ideal For	Scripting enthusiasts	Power users	General users

Installation steps

1. Install Yabai and skhd

brew install koekeishiya/formulae/yabai
brew install koekeishiya/formulae/skhd

2. Configure MAC OS settings
   • Mission Control
     • Disable “Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use”.
     • Enable “Displays have separate Spaces”.
   • Accessibility
     • Grant Accessibility permissions to both yabai and skhd.
       • If having difficulties granting access permissions, try
         • brew services start yabai, or yabai --start-service or brew services restart yabai
3. Create Configuration Files 1.