Stack
One big window holds your focus, with the rest lined up neatly beside it — glance over.
A calmer Mac, in a few minutes
No manual, no setup rituals. This is the friendly tour — what KiwiDesk does, how to make it yours, and whether it's the right fit. Scroll through, or jump to any part from the list.
Step one
Getting started
Installing KiwiDesk takes about a minute.
Download KiwiDesk, open the file, and drag the kiwi into your Applications folder. That’s the whole install.
KiwiDesk 4.0.0Free to use. Signed and notarized. Requires macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon.
KiwiDesk keeps itself up to date from here on — it tells you when a new version is out and installs it for you.
Using VoiceOver or the keyboard? Settings announces every control by name and value, and you can reach all of it without a mouse — the user guide has the details, including the one macOS setting you need to turn on.
The one permission it asks for
The first time you open KiwiDesk, macOS asks you to grant Accessibility access. This is the normal, expected prompt — and, with one press of Start Tiling after it, the only thing KiwiDesk needs from you. To tidy your screen, it has to be able to move and resize your windows, and macOS keeps that ability behind this permission. A short onboarding wizard walks you to the right spot in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility and helps you switch it on.
What it never does
KiwiDesk stays an ordinary app with no kernel extension, so the things people worry about simply aren't part of how it works:
- It never asks you to disable SIP (your Mac's built-in System Integrity Protection). Your Mac's protections stay exactly as they are.
- It never needs Input Monitoring, and it never records or stores what you type.
Your first tidy desktop
With the permission granted, press Start Tiling and KiwiDesk gets to work — nothing moves before you do. The moment you have a window open, you'll see it settle neatly into place — filling its share of the screen, edge to edge, with no overlap. Open a second and the two share the screen side by side. Nothing is buried, nothing is hunted for. You keep working the way you always do; the arranging just happens.
The shapes
The layouts
A “layout” is just the shape your windows arrange themselves into. KiwiDesk has seven. You don't have to learn them all — most people find one they like and stay there. Here's each, in plain language.
BSP
Windows split the screen into tidy panes, each new one halving the pane it lands in. Balanced, edge to edge.
Scrolling
Windows sit side by side in one long row, like frames on a filmstrip — the focused one always front and center.
Monocle
One window fills the screen while the others wait quietly behind it. Pure focus, no distractions.
Grid
Everything laid out in even rows and columns, each window with its own equal square — open more than fit and the last row or column scrolls the rest.
Track
Side-by-side columns (or rows), each holding as many windows as you like — one column per task or project.
Floating
The plain macOS way: windows float freely, right where you drag them. KiwiDesk leaves these ones alone.
Make it yours
Finding your favorite
The best way to find your layout is to try a few and feel which one suits your day. Press ⌃⌥C and the Space you're on steps to its next layout — your windows rearrange right away, so you see each one live. Keep pressing to go round, or press ⌃⌥L to pick one by name.
When one feels right, keep it: Keep in Profile in that picker saves what's on screen. Different Spaces can have different layouts — a focused stack for writing, a wide scrolling row for research, whatever fits.
It's okay to change your mind
Nothing here is permanent. Switch layouts as often as you like — there's no wrong choice, and you can always go back. KiwiDesk only ever moves and resizes windows; it never touches your files or your apps.
Point and click
The Settings app
Everything is point-and-click — you never need to edit a file. Open Settings from the KiwiDesk menu in your menu bar. Its Home page lays everything out as cards in two groups: This Profile (the look and feel of the profile you're working on) and Whole App (settings that apply everywhere). Here's what each one is for.
Spaces
Name the Spaces you use — “web”, “mail”, a number — pick each one's layout, and KiwiDesk keeps each one tidy on its own.
Layout Defaults
Tune how each layout behaves, for every Space that uses it. Want one Space to be different? Give it its own tweaks from its row in Spaces, without changing the rest.
Screens
Have more than one screen? Pin a Space to one by dragging it onto that screen. Handy when you dock and undock.
Gaps & Borders
Set the breathing room between your windows, and the shape of the small visuals — the soft highlight that shows where a window will land as you drag it, the ring around the window you're focused on, and whether a sticky window carries a little mark. Sizes and shapes here; the colors have a section of their own.
KiwiShelf
Where your Space Bar and App Bar sit — together on one edge or each on its own — and how they look. Two optional on-screen strips. The Space Bar shows all your Spaces at a glance — click one to jump there, or drag a window onto it to send it over. The App Bar lists every window in the monocle and scrolling layouts, so nothing hides; click an item to focus it, or drag items to reorder. Little badges mark floating windows and sticky ones.
Looks & Animations
Pick a whole color set in one click — every palette shows a small scene painted in its own colors, so you can see the look before you take it, and the scene underneath shows the colors you're running right now. Applying a palette paints once; you're free to change any single color afterwards. Animation lives here too: whether windows animate at all, which moments they animate, and how long each glide takes. Further down, Colors & glass sets the glass finish — Liquid Glass, Fill and Sheen. And if you ever do want one specific color rather than a whole set, the Colors drawer below it holds every color, grouped by where you see it on screen — most people never open it.
Profiles
Save a whole setup as a profile and switch between them — one for focused work, another for a second screen at your desk.
Shortcuts & Gestures
See and change the keyboard shortcuts, recorded by simply pressing the keys you want — every conflict is flagged for you. Mouse and trackpad gestures live here too, with focus that can follow the pointer, and a Hyper key that turns Caps Lock into a modifier of its own.
App Rules & General
Automatically send an app to a chosen Space every time you open it, keep certain windows floating, and pick the Settings language — all point-and-click. Beside them, the Mac Checklist walks you through the few macOS settings worth changing so they don't get in your tiling's way.
KiwiVision
When you need to concentrate, ⌃⌥V dims and blurs everything but the window you're in. Choose how much, which apps never dim, and whether your Mac's appearance switches while it's on — or make a lens that keeps the apps you pick clear, on a shortcut of its own.
AI
Rather describe your desk than build it? Add KiwiDesk to Claude Desktop with one button, or copy a setup prompt for Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, and ask for the Spaces, the look or the app rules you want. Most of what your AI app changes stays temporary until you tell it to keep it.
Keys that fit you
Choosing your own shortcuts
Thanks for being here. Genuinely — wanting the keys to fit you better is the whole idea. The nearer they get to your own habits, the more this stops feeling like a tool you operate and starts feeling like your Mac just works the way you want it to.
What ships is a starting point I chose to be easy to pick up without walking over macOS and your usual apps, but you know your hands and your habits better than I do. Below are a few things I kept in mind — I don't follow all of them myself, so take the ones that matter to you and skip the rest.
Trying a new chord
- Think about where you actually use shortcuts — the two or three apps you live in, and the macOS ones you'd notice losing.
- Bind it, then open that app once and see whether anything behaves differently.
- If something does, come back and change it. Nothing here is permanent, and you can always reset to the defaults.
You can't break anything
Worst case, something doesn't work the way you meant for a minute. KiwiDesk doesn't break anything and never touches your files — it just moves windows around. So experiment.
KiwiDesk tells you when macOS itself already owns a chord, and shows it on the keyboard preview. It can't see what your other apps use, though — which is what step 2 is for.
Really want to be sure? Most apps publish a full list — search for <app name> keyboard shortcuts.
A few things I kept in mind
- ⌃⌥ (Control-Option) is the quiet corner. macOS barely uses it and most apps don't touch it at all — which is why the defaults live there.
- ⌥ (Option) on its own types characters. On a US keyboard ⌥L is ¬ and ⌥5 is ∞. Adding ⌃ or ⌘ stops that.
- ⌥⌘ (Option-Command) with arrows is tab switching in most browsers and terminals. Those have no menu to fall back on, so they're the ones people miss most when they go.
Running out of room on ⌃⌥? Shortcuts & Gestures ▸ Modifier keys ▸ Hyper key turns Caps Lock, or another key you pick, into a modifier of its own that no app uses — and it can move your ⌃⌥ letter shortcuts onto it in one step.
Bonus points if you can drive KiwiDesk one-handed afterwards — then you've always got a hand free for your next kiwi. 🥝
Good questions
FAQ
Do I need to know Lua or write any code?
No. The Settings app covers everything — layouts, gaps, screens, shortcuts, app rules — all with clicks and sliders. Lua is there for tinkerers who want to script their setup, but it's entirely optional. Most people never open a config file. And if you'd rather just say what you want, Settings ▸ AI lets your own AI app set KiwiDesk up for you.
Does it replace Mission Control or macOS Desktops?
No — it works alongside them. KiwiDesk arranges the windows inside its own Spaces; your macOS Desktops and Mission Control keep working just as they do now. You can even assign a different setup to each Mission Control Desktop, so it switches automatically as you move between them.
Is my data private?
Yes. KiwiDesk runs entirely on your Mac, as an ordinary app with no kernel extension. It only moves and resizes windows — it never reads your files, and it never records a keystroke. By default it never sees one; only the opt-in for left- and right-side shortcuts checks key presses, and it acts on yours alone. It never asks you to weaken your Mac's built-in protections. If you connect an AI app, it reads only what it asks KiwiDesk for — your Spaces, layouts and the names and titles of your windows — and that app's own privacy terms apply to what it does with it.
Will it slow down my Mac or drain the battery?
KiwiDesk is a small, native macOS app built to sit quietly in the background. It only does work when your windows actually change, and its animations run at each screen's own natural refresh rate. Day to day, you shouldn't notice it in the background at all. If you'd rather have no animation at all, one switch in Looks & Animations turns off every window animation at once, and KiwiDesk already honors Reduce Motion if that's on in your System Settings.
Can one window still take the whole screen?
Yes. ⌃⌥M fills the screen with the tiled window you’re in, without macOS’s full-screen mode, and the same key puts it back in its place.
How do I uninstall it?
Quit KiwiDesk from its menu-bar icon and remove the app like any other. If you installed it with Homebrew, run brew uninstall --cask kiwidesk. The moment it's off, your windows behave exactly like normal macOS windows again — free to drag, resize, and overlap. Nothing sticks, and nothing of yours was ever changed.
A quick gut-check
Is KiwiDesk for you?
If you spend even a little of your day dragging windows around, you'll probably feel the difference. A few everyday moments, before and after:
An everyday multitasker
Before
A browser, your messages, music, and a note or two — all stacked on top of each other. You drag one aside to find another, then lose track of where the first one went.
After
Every window takes its own spot the moment it opens, nothing buried. You can even send apps to their own Space — mail on one, music tucked in a corner — so each one is right where you expect it, every time.
Someone in back-to-back calls
Before
The call window buries your notes. You scramble to find them, then lose the call behind something else.
After
Notes stay visible right beside the call — and you can give your meetings their own Space, so the moment a call starts, everything's already in place. You stay present instead of shuffling windows.
A consultant, spreadsheets everywhere
Before
Spreadsheets, a slide deck, a dozen browser tabs, and a call — spread across two screens, and the first ten minutes of every meeting go to dragging it all into place.
After
Each screen keeps its own tidy layout, and you can pin a Space to a screen — the numbers on one, the deck and the call on the other. Dock or undock and it re-settles on its own. Everything right where you left it.
A writer juggling research
Before
Notes, three browser tabs pulled out into windows, and the draft — all overlapping. Half your time goes to hunting for the window you just had.
After
The draft sits front and center, sources lined up beside it. And when you need a reference that lives on another Space, you flick straight there and back in a keystroke — no swiping through Desktops, no losing your place.
A designer with many panels
Before
Canvas, layers, an inspector, a reference image — a dozen floating panels you nudge into place at the start of every session.
After
Everything snaps into a balanced arrangement the moment you open it. More screen for the work, less for the fiddling.
A developer juggling terminals
Before
Editor, two or three terminals, a browser full of docs, your git client — the same layout you rebuild by hand every time you sit down.
After
It all tiles itself, flat — no i3-style container nesting to babysit — and rules send each app to its Space: code here, chat there. You already knew you wanted this; KiwiDesk just does it and gets out of the way.
Ready to give your screen some peace?
Head back and grab KiwiDesk — it takes about a minute, and your windows will thank you.
KiwiDesk 4.0.0