Best Rectangle alternative for Mac in 2026: when you need more than snapping

Answer

If you need more than snapping, the best Rectangle alternative for Mac in 2026 is Ikuna, a workspace and session manager that saves your apps and window positions and brings a saved workspace back after a restart or a project switch. If you only need to place windows with shortcuts, Rectangle is free, open source and enough.

Snap vs. restore: two different jobs

Most window tools on the Mac do one thing: they move a window you already have open to a position you choose. Rectangle, Rectangle Pro, Magnet, Loop and NeoTiler all live in this category. You press a shortcut, drag to an edge or pick from a menu, and the window lands where you want it. That is snapping.

Snapping assumes the windows exist. It starts after you have opened the apps, found the right documents and set up the screen. When the Mac restarts or you move from one project to another, that work is gone, and you do it again by hand: open the apps, find the files, drag everything back into place.

Restoring is the other half of the problem. A session manager does not care how a window gets to its position. It remembers the whole workspace and rebuilds it.

Ikuna is a Mac workspace and session manager. It is not a tiling tool, and it does not try to replace a dedicated snapping app. It has a few optional keyboard shortcuts for placing windows, but snapping is not what it is built for. It reopens every app and puts all of its windows back where they were. For some apps it also brings back what was open inside them:

• Browser tabs in supported browsers
• Finder windows and tabs
• Terminal.app and iTerm2 windows, with their tabs and working directories (not running processes or shell state)
• Zed projects and files, and TextEdit documents

Those are extras on top of the basics. Every app gets reopened and its windows put back, whether or not Ikuna can restore anything inside it. Saved workspaces survive restarts: turn on Start at Login, then one click reopens your apps and puts their windows back. There is no crash recovery.

You can keep several workspaces, for example one per project, and switch between them. The Monday client project, the side project and the writing setup each stay saved until you need them.

How the tools compare

Prices and release details were checked on 2 and 3 November 2026. This table covers what each tool's own site or release notes say about snapping and workspaces. It does not rate how well any tool restores a session.

Two notes on reading the table.

First, it does not say that any tool lacks a feature it does not list. If a saved layout or an app relaunch matters to your decision, check the tool's own documentation before you buy.

Second, a saved layout and a restored session are not the same thing. A layout profile remembers where windows should go. A session manager also has to reopen the apps, bring the windows back and, where it can, restore what was open inside them. NeoTiler's Smart Workspaces are the closest match to Ikuna's saved workspaces in this group, and it is worth reading what a saved workspace covers before assuming it reopens closed apps.

When each tool is the right pick

Pick Rectangle if you just need to snap windows. It is free, open source and actively maintained. Version 2.0.4 arrived on 20 October and added mouse-button shortcuts and edge-snap options. If your routine is "open apps, press a shortcut, get to work," and a restart costs you a minute of setup, you do not need anything else.

Pick Rectangle Pro if you want to pay for more on top of that. As a paid one-time license, it suits people who like Rectangle and want to support it or want the extra features.

Pick Raycast if you already live in a launcher. Window layouts are a side feature there, not the main product. If Raycast is already your launcher and clipboard manager, its layouts may cover what you need without another app. Version 2.10 fixed layouts being applied incorrectly to vertically arranged displays, which matters if you run that setup.

Pick Magnet if you already own it and it works. It is a $4.99 snapping tool on the Mac App Store. The current version is v3.0.7, so check that it still suits your macOS version before you recommend it to a team.

Pick Loop if you prefer a radial menu. It is free and open source, and moves windows through a radial menu instead of a list of shortcuts. The last stable release was 1.4.2 in January 2026.

Pick NeoTiler if you want custom snap zones and auto-snap rules. At $9.99 lifetime, with a 14-day trial, it adds Smart Workspaces to the snapping basics. It is a good fit if what you want is control over where every window sits.

Pick Ikuna if the setup is the expensive part. That is the case when you:

• restart your Mac, and rebuilding the screen takes real effort
• switch between projects and want each one waiting exactly as you left it
• keep many browser tabs, Finder windows or Terminal.app and iTerm2 tabs and working directories open per project
• are tired of opening the same apps in the same order every morning

Ikuna is not a snapping app. If a full set of snap shortcuts and drag-to-edge zones is what you want, use one of the tools above. If you want both, run a snapping tool next to Ikuna. They do separate jobs.

What you need to set up Ikuna

Ikuna needs Accessibility and asks to control the apps it restores.

1. Accessibility, so it can read and place windows.
2. Screen Recording, used only to read window titles when it saves a workspace. Nothing is recorded.

Ikuna does not prompt you for Screen Recording, so you need to turn it on yourself in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording. If a saved workspace looks incomplete, check that setting first.

Download Ikuna

If you have rebuilt the same screen after one restart too many, try a tool that saves it for you. Ikuna has a free plan with up to four saved workspaces and no card required. Pro is €9 a month or €70 a year.