RibbonA window manager made for MacBook screens
On a 13- or 14-inch MacBook, tiling makes windows too small and floating buries them. A scrolling window manager keeps every window usable.
By Chethan Kumar S N · Updated
A 13- or 14-inch MacBook screen is where window management hurts most. There’s room for one window comfortably, two at a squeeze, and most of us keep ten open. Every approach macOS offers trades one problem for another.
Why laptops are hard
- Floating windows pile up. Each app opens at its own size, on top of the others, and you spend the day digging with ⌘Tab and Mission Control.
- Full screen hides everything else. Every full-screen app is its own Space, and swiping between them feels slow.
- Grid tiling gets cramped fast. Three windows on a 13-inch screen are each about the width of a phone in landscape. Four are worse.
- Stage Manager’s thumbnails eat width you don’t have spare. See our Stage Manager alternative.
Let the layout grow sideways
A scrolling window manager solves the laptop problem by not trying to fit everything on the screen. Every window gets a full-height column on a strip that runs past both edges. You see one or two at a time, each at a width that’s actually usable, and the rest are a swipe away, in the order you left them.
That suits a MacBook well:
- The trackpad is the controller. In Ribbon, a three-finger swipe slides the strip with your fingers, one to one, with flicks and rubber-banding at the ends.
- Two halves, then keep going. Two ½-width columns look like a classic split screen, and the third window is right beside them, not underneath.
- Full width when you need it. ⌃⌥F fills the screen with the focused window, and puts it back when you press it again.
- You never get lost. A strip map floats up while you move, showing every window and where you are.
- It goes with you. Plug into a monitor and that display gets its own strip; unplug and your laptop’s strip is still there.
Light on the battery
Ribbon only touches the two or three windows on screen while the strip scrolls, and sleeps whenever nothing is moving. In its own benchmark, 95% of frames need about a millisecond of work or less. More on the home page.
Try it
Ribbon runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later on Apple silicon, which covers every MacBook Air and MacBook Pro from the M1 on. There’s a 7-day free trial, then it’s $15 once. You can also drive the strip in your browser first.
Questions
What's the best window manager for a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro?
On a laptop screen, a scrolling window manager like Ribbon usually works better than a grid tiler, because windows keep a usable width however many you open. You glide between them with a three-finger swipe on the trackpad.
Does Ribbon work without an external mouse?
Yes. It's built around the trackpad: three- or four-finger swipes move the strip and follow your fingers one to one. Everything also works from the keyboard.
Ready? Buy Ribbon for $15, or read all the guides.