GitHub - BarutSRB/OmniWM: MacOS Niri and Hyprland inspired tiling window manager that's developer signed and notorized (safe for managed enterprise environments). Aiming for parity and extra innovation.

Demo Video

Contributors

Thank you to everyone who contributed to OmniWM. Your ideas and code made a real difference.

Balazs Hevesi

Jan Hesters

Jose Cardama

Lukas Gerlinski

Marcus Harlid Davin

Rich Hanes

Williamufo

Yang-Yiming

Zicochaos

Small demo, not fully showing everything, gif recorded at 30fps due to size, some stuff is now more refined and better as soem gifs might be outdated, features shown:

• Real quake/sticky terminal using ghostty's libghostty
• Best-effort macOS native-tab replacement support
• IPC/CLI
• Scratchpad/Sticky windows of any app
• Niri Overview
• Unified command palette for windows and app menus
• App menu anywhere
• Niri tabs
• Niri and Dwindle layout
• Hide/unhide status bar icons (Simialr to Ice Bar)
• Keep awake (Similar to Caffeine)
• Interactive workspace/app icon bar
• A lot more features not show in the video.

Known Limitations

• Gestures/Trackpad - Magic Mouse and trackpad gestures are untested (no hardware available for testing but haven't heard complaints so it works)

Performance & Trust

OmniWM is built for high responsiveness and smooth, crisp animations.

• Private APIs - OmniWM leverages Apple's private APIs where ever technically possible in order to reduce latency and improve window management responsiveness.
• Refresh rate aware animations - OmniWM targets true display refresh pacing (for example 60/120/144Hz) for animations.
• No SIP disable required - OmniWM does not require System Integrity Protection (SIP) to be disabled and never will.
• Always notarized official releases - Official OmniWM release builds are developer signed and notarized by Apple and will stay that way.
• Forever free, no limitations - OmniWM is and will remain free to use forever, with no subscriptions, feature paywalls, trial limits, or usage caps.

Requirements

• macOS 15+ (Sequoia)
• Accessibility permissions (prompted on launch)
• Displays have separate spaces OFF

Installation

Homebrew

brew tap BarutSRB/tap
brew install omniwm

GitHub Releases

1. Download the latest OmniWM.zip from Releases
2. Extract and move OmniWM.app to /Applications
3. In System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control, turn OFF Displays have separate Spaces
4. Log out of macOS and log back in for that change to take effect unless you had it off already
5. Launch OmniWM and grant Accessibility permissions when prompted

Updates

OmniWM checks for updates by default.

• On launch, OmniWM polls the latest GitHub release at most once per day.
• Updates stay manual. OmniWM does not auto-download or auto-install a new release.
• When a newer release is available, OmniWM shows a centered popup with release notes and actions for Open Release Page, Copy brew upgrade omniwm, Skip This Version, and Not Now.
• You can control this from Settings > General > Updates or trigger a manual check from the status bar menu with Check for Updates....

Documentation

The documentation hub lives in docs/index.md.

• Documentation Home
• Architecture Guide
• IPC & CLI Reference
• Contribution Docs
• Canonical Contributing Guide

IPC and CLI

OmniWM ships with a bundled CLI, omniwmctl, for automation and scripting.

IPC is disabled by default. Enable Enable IPC from the menu bar before using the CLI or any automation.

For setup, installation options, commands, queries, rules, subscriptions, and security details, see docs/IPC-CLI.md.

Quick Start

1. Launch OmniWM from your Applications folder
2. In System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control, turn OFF Displays have separate Spaces
3. Log out of macOS and log back in for that change to take effect unless you had it off already
4. Grant Accessibility permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility
5. Windows will automatically tile in columns
6. Use the default shortcuts in Keyboard Shortcuts to navigate between windows
7. Click the menu bar icon to access Settings, including Settings > General > Updates
8. Use Check for Updates... from the status bar menu whenever you want to run a manual update check
9. In case you freak out and don't see all your status bar icons, relax, right click on OmniWM's status bar icon and drag the icons to the left of it's "/" by holding CMD + drag as OmniWM hides status bar icons like Ice Bar.

User Guide

Layout Modes

OmniWM offers two layout engines that you can switch between per workspace:

Niri (Scrolling Columns) - Windows arranged in vertical columns that scroll horizontally. Each column can have multiple stacked windows or be "tabbed" (multiple windows, one visible at a time). Best for wide monitors with many windows.

Hyprland Dwindle (BSP) - Binary space partition layout that recursively divides screen space. Each new window splits the space in half. Best for traditional tiling with predictable layouts.

Use the Toggle Workspace Layout shortcut below to switch layouts per workspace or configure them in GUI settings.

Keyboard Shortcuts

All shortcuts are customizable in Settings > Hotkeys. The tables below list all the hotkeys:

Layout legend:

• Shared works in any active layout.
• Niri works only when the active workspace uses the Niri layout.
• Dwindle works only when the active workspace uses the Dwindle layout.

Workspace

Focus

Move Window

Monitor

Layout

Column

In Niri, Move Left / Right expels the focused window out of multi-window columns or consumes a single-window column into the adjacent column. Move Up / Down keeps the current in-column reorder behavior.

Quake Terminal (Inside Terminal)

Features

Quake Terminal

A true quake/sticky terminal (powered by Ghostty's libghostty) that slides in from the screen edge and:

• Toggle it from the global shortcut shown in Keyboard Shortcuts
• Supports multiple tabs and splits within tabs
• Tab and pane shortcuts are listed in Quake Terminal (Inside Terminal)
• Mouse resize by dragging edges; Option + drag to move (remembers size/position per monitor)
• Configure position (top/bottom/left/right/center), size, and opacity in Settings
• Auto-hides on focus loss (optional)

Command Palette

Quickly search windows or app menus from one shared palette:

• Open it from the global shortcut shown in Keyboard Shortcuts
• Use Cmd + 1 for Windows and Cmd + 2 for Menu when menu search is available
• Type to fuzzy-search by window title, app name, or menu item
• Menu results always show keyboard shortcuts when available
• Up / Down move the selection
• Enter activates the selected result
• Shift + Enter summons the selected window to the right when available
• Escape dismisses the palette

Menu Anywhere

Access any application's menu from your keyboard:

• Shows the native menu at the cursor from a global shortcut

Overview Mode

See all windows at once with thumbnails:

• Open it from the global shortcut shown in Keyboard Shortcuts
• Click a window to focus it
• Type to filter/search windows; Backspace deletes search text
• Alt + Shift + Mouse Scroll to zoom in/out
• Arrow Keys navigate the selection; Tab / Shift + Tab move horizontally
• Enter activates the selected window
• Escape clears the search first, then dismisses the overview when the search is empty

Workspace Bar

A visual indicator showing your workspaces:

• Displays open apps per workspace
• Click to switch workspaces or jump to that app
• If dedupe option is on click the app icon to get a popup with list of all its windows to jump to
• Configure position, height, and appearance in Settings

Hidden Bar

Hide or reveal status bar icons using a separator item:

• Right-click the OmniWM menu bar icon to toggle
• An optional global hotkey is available and starts unassigned

Tips

• Workspaces - Create named workspaces in Settings to organize by project or context (You can use emojis 🥳)
• App Rules - Exclude problematic apps from tiling or assign them to specific workspaces
• Mouse - Option + drag swaps tiled windows; Option + Shift + drag inserts windows to a column (Niri)
• Mouse Resize - Hover window edges and drag to resize (Niri)
• Scroll Gestures (Mouse) - Hold Option + Shift + Mouse Scroll Wheel (default, configurable) and scroll through columns horizontally
• Trackpad Gestures - Use horizontal gestures with 2/3/4 fingers (configurable); direction can be inverted (not tested lacking hardware)

Configuration

Access settings by clicking OmniWM's status bar icon and selecting Settings or App Rules. Mouse and gesture settings are available in Settings.

OmniWM stores its editable config at ~/.config/omniwm/settings.json, while private runtime state lives in UserDefaults.

• Editable Config writes the full canonical settings file, including hotkeys and monitor overrides, so it can be edited directly.
• Compact Backup writes only values that differ from defaults. Import still merges that backup back into the full canonical settings model.
• Create Config File, Reveal Settings File, and Open Settings File create settings.json on first use if it does not exist yet.
• updateChecksEnabled is part of the persisted settings model, so it round-trips through full export, compact backup, and import.
• Fetched release notes, release URLs, last-check timestamps, and skipped-release state stay out of settings.json and remain local runtime or private UserDefaults state only.
• The persisted window restore catalog also stays in private UserDefaults. It stores local restore metadata such as workspace target, preferred monitor, floating geometry, and matching window identity fields so managed floating windows can be restored or rescued across relaunches without being exported to settings.json.

App Rules

Configure per-application behavior in Settings > App Rules:

• Always Float - Force specific apps to always float (e.g., calculators, preferences windows)
• Assign to Workspace - Automatically move app windows to a specific workspace
• Minimum Size - Prevent the layout engine from sizing windows below a threshold

Building from Source

Requirements:

• SwiftPM with Swift 6.2+
• macOS 15.0+
• Zig 0.15.2
• Ghostty's universal libghostty.a at Frameworks/GhosttyKit.xcframework/macos-arm64_x86_64/libghostty.a

Build Commands:

make build         # Run build preflight checks, build Zig kernels, then build OmniWM
make test          # Run build preflight checks, build Zig kernels, then run the Swift test suite
make kernels-test  # Run the Zig kernel test suite
make verify        # Run lint + build + tests
make release-check # Run release-oriented preflight and universal build checks

make build and make test are the supported entry points for contributors. They run the current preflight checks and Zig kernel build automatically before invoking SwiftPM, so you should not rely on calling swift build or swift test directly on a fresh checkout.

Support

If you find OmniWM useful, consider supporting development:

• GitHub Sponsors
• PayPal

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

Start with CONTRIBUTING.md for the actual project guidelines, expectations, and preferred direction.

For deeper technical context, the docs pages that back the documentation site are here:

• Architecture Guide
• IPC & CLI Reference
• Contribution Docs