Ankylix for Mac
A letter lands on every window and every zone of your screen. Press it — or drag the window onto a zone — and it's tiled, focused or moved. Keyboard or mouse: use whichever your hand is on.
14 days free, no card · One-time purchase · macOS 13 or later
Press a trigger, read the letters, press one. Every mode works the same way — so once you know one, you know them all. And the mouse gets you there too.
Every zone of a layout gets a letter. Press one to drop the focused window there — or press ↩ and the whole layout fills with your most recent windows, in one go. Or drag the window there.
Place the window in that zone. Taken? They swap.
Apply the layout to your recent windows, front to back.
Jump to a layout by its digit. Arrows cycle layouts and screens.
Start moving a window with the mouse and your layout appears. The zone under the pointer lights up; let go and the window snaps into it. Move to another display and the layout follows you. No shortcut to learn — it's on from the first launch.
Change layout mid-drag — or right click, or press its digit.
Fill the other zones too, with your recent windows. Drop on a window and they swap.
Open the app there from now on.
Each window on every screen gets a hint — usually the app's initial, so S is Safari and X is Xcode. After a few days you stop reading the hints and just press. Hand on the mouse? Click the window instead.
Focus the window with that letter.
Switch to a list of every window — same letters, compact.
Minimized windows in a panel, each with its own letter.
Need a number from another window? Peek at it. It comes to the front, centred and framed in orange — scroll it, copy from it. Press esc and everything goes back where it was, you included.
In the switcher, peek instead of jumping. Or just hold the letter.
Next window — each one goes back before the next comes up.
Peek again at the last window, wherever it is now.
A mode just for the focused window. Everything else dims; your direction keys move it, and with ⇧ they resize it. Bind them to h j k l and it feels like Vim.
Move the window — or any keys you choose.
Resize it with the same keys.
Next window without leaving the mode.
Arrange the apps for a task once and save them as a group with ⌃⌥⇧G. Later, press ⌃⌥G and a letter: closed apps launch, every window goes back where it was, and everything else steps aside.
In a layout, hold ⇧ with a zone's letter: the window goes there, and from now on that app opens its first window right there too. In move & resize, P pins the exact frame you've set.
The details that make it feel like it was always part of your Mac.
Hold the modifiers for a moment and a cheat sheet appears. Inside a mode, pause and it lists that mode's keys.
Triggers and in-mode keys. Pick one an app already uses and Ankylix tells you.
Hints and layouts on every display. Arrows hop between screens; drag a window across and the layout follows.
Put any mode on your mouse's middle, back or forward button — open the switcher without touching the keyboard.
Colors, sizes, borders, corner radius and label position for each mode, with a live preview. Save looks as themes and switch between them.
A small native menu-bar app. Everything runs on your Mac.
A preferences pane for every mode — shortcuts, layouts, looks and permissions at a glance.
One-time payment. No subscription.
Secure checkout by Paddle, our authorized reseller.
Download Ankylix and use every feature free for 14 days.
No — Ankylix works with the mouse too, out of the box. Drag a window and your layout appears: drop it on a zone and it snaps there. While dragging, right click or scroll to change layout, press ↩ to fill the other zones too, and drop on a window to swap the two. Hold ⇧ to move a window freely — or flip it so the layout only shows while you hold the key. In the window switcher you can click a window to jump to it, and the middle, back and forward buttons of your mouse can each start a mode. It's all under Preferences → General → Mouse.
Exactly. Vimium puts a letter on every link so you can follow it from the keyboard. Ankylix puts a letter on every window and tiling zone — press it to focus the window or snap it into place. Same muscle memory, for your whole desktop.
Yes. Layouts and window hints work on every connected display, and you can apply any layout to whichever screen your window is on. Inside a mode, the arrow keys move between screens.
Yes. The shortcut recorder follows QWERTY, Colemak, Colemak-DH and Dvorak, so the keys you see are the keys you press. Every trigger and in-mode key can be rebound.
Hold a trigger's modifiers (⌃⌥ by default) for a moment and a cheat sheet of every trigger appears. Inside a mode, pause and a panel lists its keys. The menu bar menu lists each mode with its shortcut, too. And while you're learning, Ankylix suggests the right shortcut when you move a window with the mouse — then stops once you've got it.
Yes — that's peek. In the window switcher, press ⇧ and a window's letter (or hold the letter): the window comes to the front, centred and framed in orange. Tab moves on to the next window. Press esc and everything goes back where it was, with you in your own window. ⌃⌥P peeks at the last window again.
A saved set of apps and where their windows are. Press ⌃⌥⇧G to save what's on screen under a name; press ⌃⌥G and the group's letter to bring it back — Ankylix launches the apps that are closed, puts each window back where it was and hides the apps outside the group.
Download Ankylix and use every feature free for 14 days — no credit card needed. When the trial ends, buy a license to keep using it.
Right after paying you land on a page with an Activate Ankylix button — one click and you're done. That page also shows your Transaction ID (it starts with txn_, and it's on your Paddle receipt too) in case you'd rather do it by hand: open Ankylix → Preferences → License, paste it, and click Activate. Ankylix verifies it online once and you're set.
No. Ankylix is a one-time purchase of €19. You own the license and get all 2.x updates.
Just one: Accessibility, standard for any window manager. It lets Ankylix move, resize and focus your windows; macOS grants Input Monitoring along with it, for the global shortcuts and the keys you press while a mode is open. Ankylix guides you to the right settings pane on first launch, and you can see both live under Preferences → General → Permissions. No Screen Recording, no analytics, no tracking — it only contacts the network to check for updates, which you can turn off.
macOS 13 (Ventura) and later.
Ankylix updates itself automatically and securely from within the app, so you're always on the latest version.
Meet the ankylosaurus: a dinosaur that walked around wearing neatly tiled plates on its back. Seventy million years early, but clearly a fan of a good layout. Those plates are what the logo is drawing — and what Ankylix does to your windows. Say it AN-kee-lix.
Usually within one business day.
Questions, bugs or ideas? Write to support@ankylix.com with your macOS version and what you were doing.
Trouble enabling Accessibility or activating a license? The FAQ and the guide walk you through it.
Payments, invoices and refunds go through Paddle, our authorized reseller. Email us your
Transaction ID (txn_…) and we'll sort it out.