Easy Move+Resize is a free, open-source macOS utility that lets you move and resize any window by holding a modifier key and dragging anywhere on it — not just the title bar or resize handle.
What is Easy Move+Resize?
Easy Move+Resize brings a long-loved Linux window-management trick to macOS: hold a configurable modifier key (typically Ctrl+Option), then drag any part of a window to move it, or right-drag to resize it. That's the entire concept, and it is executed perfectly. No subscription, no nag screen, no Electron runtime — just a tiny background process that quietly rewires how your trackpad and mouse interact with every window on screen.
I discovered it after years of hunting for the title bar on overlapping terminal windows. Within an hour of installing Easy Move+Resize I had completely unlearned the habit of reaching for the top of a window, and I've never gone back.
What does Easy Move+Resize do best?
Its killer feature is friction elimination. macOS forces you to aim precisely at a 22-pixel title bar to move a window, and at an 8-pixel triangle in the corner to resize one. Easy Move+Resize abolishes both constraints. Hold your modifier key, click anywhere on the window body to drag it to a new position, or right-click-drag to pull a corner and resize freely.
- Works with every app — native Cocoa, Electron, Qt, Java — because it hooks at the window-server level, not per-app.
- Configurable modifier key — defaults to Ctrl+Option, but you can choose any combination that doesn't clash with your other shortcuts.
- Zero visual chrome — no toolbar icon required, no HUD overlay, nothing to click. It stays invisible until you need it.
- Lightweight by design — the CPU and RAM footprint is essentially unmeasurable.
Where tools like Moom, Magnet, or Rectangle focus on snapping windows to grid positions, Easy Move+Resize solves the complementary problem: getting a window to exactly where you want it before you snap it. They pair beautifully together.
Is Easy Move+Resize free?
Yes — completely free to download and use, with no paid tier, no in-app purchases, and no telemetry. The source code lives publicly on GitHub under an open-source license, so you can audit exactly what it does before granting it Accessibility access. For security-conscious users that transparency matters more than any price tag.
Who should use Easy Move+Resize?
Anyone who manages more than two or three windows at a time will feel the benefit almost immediately. It is especially valuable for developers running split layouts across a wide monitor, writers who juggle a reference window alongside their editor, and anyone who switched to macOS from Linux and misses the modifier-drag behaviour that desktops like GNOME and KDE have offered for decades.
It is not for users who want automated tiling or keyboard-driven layouts — for that, look at Raycast's window-management commands, Aerospace, or Amethyst. Easy Move+Resize is deliberately manual and direct: you move the mouse, the window follows.
What are the best Easy Move+Resize alternatives?
The closest spiritual alternative is BetterTouchTool, which can replicate modifier-drag behaviour as part of its broader gesture engine — but BTT costs money and carries enormous scope you may never use. Mosaic and Magnet are excellent for snapping but don't offer free-form modifier-drag. If you're already paying for Keyboard Maestro, you can approximate some of this with window-action macros, though the feel isn't the same. For pure modifier-drag on a zero budget, Easy Move+Resize has no real competition.
How does Easy Move+Resize compare to BetterTouchTool?
BetterTouchTool can do everything Easy Move+Resize does and vastly more — but that breadth comes with complexity and a licence fee. Easy Move+Resize installs in under a minute, requires exactly one Accessibility permission, and presents a preferences panel with fewer than ten options. If modifier-drag is all you need, BTT is architectural overkill. If you already own BTT and want to consolidate, you can replace Easy Move+Resize entirely with a BTT window-drag action and lose nothing. For everyone else, the dedicated tool wins on simplicity.
