How to resize and snap windows with swipe gestures on macOS

macOS is still miles behind Windows 10 when it comes to snapping windows. Snapping is a concept that Windows made popular but Apple is rarely shy about taking features from other operating systems or even apps. It still doesn’t do window management like Windows does and that’s why there are many apps that try and replicate it. Penc is a free, open source Mac app that lets you resize and snap windows with swipe gestures on macOS.

Snap windows with swipe gestures

Penc doesn’t mimic Windows 10 completely in the way it snaps windows. It can snap windows and resize them but you have to activate it with the keyboard.

Download, and run Penc. It needs special accessibility access in order to work. Once the app is running tap the Command key on your keyboard twice, and do not release it after the second tap.

You will see a translucent overlay appear on your screen. Position your mouse cursor over a window and then pinch to resize it, or move the overlay to whichever side of the screen you want to snap the window to.

You can release the Command key once you’ve snapped the window. If the Command key isn’t convenient for you to use, you can change it.

Visit Penc’s preferences and change the ‘Double press modifier key to activate’ key. You can also change how sensitive the app is to swipe gestures. It will not change the sensitivity of your touch pad overall.

macOS has yet to replicate the ‘maximize’ button that most users want. The maximize button doesn’t fill the entire screen though, as of a somewhat recent update, you can double-click the edge of an app window and ‘fill’ it in that direction. It’s clumsy to use, and not something that a lot of people know about.

macOS has something like this but only for full screen apps. The OS is capable of implementing this feature easily enough so it’s possible that Apple doesn’t think it’s worth implementing for the desktop. For as great as the touch pad on a MacBook is, or the Magic track pad that Apple sells, its swipe gestures often feel under-utilized. In fact, Windows 10 which runs on systems with varying hardware, is actually doing a much better job with touch pad gestures.

If you want to customize touch pad gestures on macOS, you need an app called BetterTouchTool and it’s not free though most people who use it claim it’s more than worth its price tag.