How to Get the Snap Window Feature on a Mac
The Windows Aero Snap feature lets you resize and snap open windows to the sides of your desktop, with each open window filling exactly half of the screen. Aero Snap also lets you expand a window to fill the full screen if you drag the window to the top of your desktop. The Mac OS X operating system does not have a snap window feature, but Cinch, a program with an unlimited free trial, mimics the functionality of Aero Snap and lets you drag windows to the sides or top of the screen to resize them.
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Instructions
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Download and unzip Cinch from the Irradiated Software website at irradiatedsoftware.com.
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Double-click the Cinch application. Click “Continue.” Click “Enable Now” to enable Universal Access on your Mac. Click the “Start Cinch Automatically at Login” check box and click “Continue.” Click the “Automatically Check for Updates” check box and click “Continue.” Click “Finish.”
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Open a program from the Dock or Applications stack. Click and hold the title bar of the open program window and drag to the left or right side of your desktop. Release the mouse button when the dotted-line outline of the window appears to resize the window to half of the screen and dock it to the side of the desktop. Click and drag the window away from the side of the screen to return the window to the original size.
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Open a program and drag the open program window to the top of the screen to expand the window to the full size of your desktop. Drag the program window away from the top of the screen to return the window to the original size.
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Tips & Warnings
Cinch will not expand windows to cover the Dock. The bottom of the windows will end at the top of the Dock. If you want to fill the screen, you should set the Dock to automatically hide. Click the Applications stack, click “System Preferences” and click “Dock.” Click the “Automatically Hide and Show the Dock” check box.
If you do not click “Start Cinch Automatically at Login,” you must run the Cinch application manually to get snap window functionality.
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