Divvy is a Mac window manager that lets you carve your screen into a custom grid and snap any window to a precise slice of that grid with a single keyboard shortcut or a tiny pop-up picker.
What is Divvy?
Divvy is a lightweight window-management utility for macOS that replaces the tedious drag-and-resize dance with a visual grid overlay. You define grid dimensions — say, 6 columns by 4 rows — and then assign shortcuts to any rectangular region within that grid. The result is a personal tiling system that bends to how you actually work, rather than forcing you into a preset left-half/right-half binary.
The app has been around for years and remains one of the most approachable entries into the window-management category. If you've ever tried Rectangle, Magnet, or Moom and felt like you were fighting the tool, Divvy's grid metaphor tends to click immediately.
What does Divvy do best?
Divvy's greatest strength is the visual shortcut builder — you literally drag across the grid to define a zone, name it, and bind a key chord. It's the fastest way I've found to explain window management to a newcomer: point at the grid, drag the rectangle you want, done.
- Custom grid dimensions — go far beyond the usual halves and thirds. A 12-column grid gives you TV-editor-style precision on an ultrawide.
- Global keyboard shortcuts — trigger any layout from anywhere without switching apps or lifting your hands.
- Pop-up picker — invoke Divvy's floating grid with a hotkey and click-drag if you prefer mouse control.
- Multiple shortcut profiles — different grid presets for laptop versus external display work well once you invest the five minutes to set them up.
- Minimal footprint — sits quietly in the menu bar, draws almost no CPU, and never nags you.
Where it stands out against Moom is the purely visual shortcut creation — Moom is more scriptable but requires more reading. Against Rectangle or Magnet, Divvy trades the preset snap zones for a blank-canvas grid, which is either liberating or overwhelming depending on your temperament.
How much does Divvy cost?
Divvy is a paid app available directly from the developer's site and through the Mac App Store. It is a one-time purchase with no subscription, which still feels refreshingly rare. There is a free trial so you can validate the workflow before committing.
For power users who've spent years in monthly-fee productivity tools, the single-payment model alone is worth a look. The price is firmly in the "impulse buy" bracket for anyone who considers their screen real estate seriously.
Who should use Divvy?
Divvy is ideal for anyone who manages several windows across a single large display or a multi-monitor setup and finds macOS's native snapping too coarse. Developers who keep a terminal, editor, and browser open side-by-side will feel the payoff immediately. Designers running Figma alongside a reference browser and a Slack channel will appreciate the precision a fine-grained grid provides.
It's also a great fit for people who tried a tiling window manager — like Yabai or Amethyst — and found automatic tiling too aggressive. Divvy keeps you in control; nothing moves unless you tell it to.
If you live mostly in full-screen mode and use macOS Spaces, Divvy won't change your life. And if you want truly automatic, rule-based layouts that fire when an app opens, look at Moom or Mosaic instead — Divvy is intentionally manual.
What are the best Divvy alternatives?
The Mac window-management space is genuinely crowded, and the right choice depends on your priorities:
- Rectangle — free, open-source, snap-zone-based. Excellent for simple halves/thirds workflows; lacks Divvy's custom grid depth.
- Moom — similarly grid-capable, adds AppleScript automation and saved window arrangements. More powerful but more complex.
- Magnet — polished, dead-simple, App Store favourite. No custom grids; great for casual users.
- Mosaic — layout-focused, beautiful UI, subscription-priced. Worth it if you rotate between named multi-window scenes.
- Yabai — for developers only; full tiling WM that requires disabling System Integrity Protection. Overkill for most.
Against these, Divvy occupies a middle tier: more flexible than Rectangle or Magnet, less scriptable than Moom, and far less drastic than Yabai. That middle ground suits a lot of everyday Mac users perfectly.
How does Divvy compare to Moom?
Both apps use a grid metaphor, but Moom stores named window snapshots you can recall later, while Divvy focuses on real-time placement via shortcuts. Moom can save the entire state of a five-window arrangement and restore it with one command — Divvy cannot. On the other hand, Divvy's shortcut setup takes about two minutes and requires no reading; Moom's full feature set rewards study. I keep both installed: Divvy for daily snap-to-grid muscle memory, Moom for the occasional "restore my meeting layout" macro.
