Settle

Your Mac windows, right where you left them.

Switch between work, coding, meeting, and study setups in seconds. Settle reopens your apps and restores every window's size and position while leaving unrelated windows untouched.

Highlights

• Native macOS app built with SwiftUI and AppKit
• Save named layouts for the current desktop, with app-based name suggestions
• Update a layout in place without renaming it; browser tab URLs require explicit confirmation
• Keep newly saved or updated layouts active immediately in their current Space
• Restore layouts without taking matching app windows away from other Spaces
• Restore multi-display layouts proportionally after displays are moved, resized, reconfigured, or disconnected
• Restore front-to-back layering consistently using native macOS application window groups
• Smarter Safari and Chrome recovery: targets their New Window command before using the standard fallback for other apps
• Optionally save and reopen normal Safari and Chrome tab URLs per layout (requires macOS Automation permission)
• Clear feedback when an app saved in a layout is no longer installed
• Keep the menu panel open when a layout cannot be fully restored
• Close every window belonging to the active layout directly from its row menu
• Native Settings for launch behavior, layout switching, extra-window handling, and permissions
• Choose whether successful layout restores leave, minimize, or close unrelated visible windows in the current Space
• Optional launch at login using the macOS login item service
• Optional automatic restore of an explicitly selected default layout at macOS login
• Active layout highlighting that follows the current Space
• Session-scoped indicators for layouts recently detected in other Spaces
• Best-effort navigation to a remembered layout Space by clicking its row
• Global active-layout switcher with snapshots, names, reverse navigation, and Option-Tab as the configurable default shortcut
• Unified action bar with primary save, contextual window actions, and a clearly separated destructive quit action
• Dedicated pinned layouts section with manual drag-to-reorder
• Layout snapshot previews inside the saved layouts list
• Internal overlays remain visible through transient macOS focus changes
• Contextual actions for restored layouts:
  • quit all apps
  • close non-layout windows
  • minimize non-layout windows
• Localized UI and website in:
  • English
  • Spanish
  • Catalan
  • French
  • German

Requirements

• macOS 14.0+
• Accessibility permission enabled for Settle
• Screen Recording permission is optional and used only for layout preview thumbnails
• Apple Silicon is the primary target, with universal macOS builds available in releases

Install

Direct download

Download the latest signed DMG from GitHub Releases:

• Latest release

Homebrew

brew install --cask olerida/tap/settle

Accessibility permission

Settle needs macOS Accessibility permission to:

• read visible window titles
• detect app windows
• move and resize windows during restore
• observe the configured global layout-switcher shortcut

Automatic layout restore also requires Accessibility permission. A signed embedded login helper starts Settle at login and requests the restore once; opening Settle manually never restores the default layout. If access is unavailable during login restore, the restore is skipped without changing the selected default layout.

Settle does not use Accessibility to read document contents, passwords, browser page contents, or keystrokes.

The layout switcher shortcut can be changed, disabled, or restored to Option-Tab in Settings. On macOS, that default may replace Safari's keyboard focus navigation while Settle is running.

Screen Recording access is used only to capture layout preview thumbnails. Settle does not capture system audio.

If you enable Accessibility and the app still shows the warning, quit and reopen Settle.

Website

• Public site: http://settle.titanolandia.es
• Hosting is built from the web/ project with Astro

Build from source

App

Open Settle.xcodeproj in Xcode and run the Settle scheme on My Mac.

Command-line debug build:

xcodebuild -project Settle.xcodeproj -scheme Settle -configuration Debug build

Website

cd web
npm install
npm run build

Project structure

• Settle/: macOS app source
• SettleTests/: unit tests
• web/: public Astro website
• CHANGELOG.md: release notes
• AGENTS.md: project-specific agent instructions

Recent release

Current documented release: v1.9.0

See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Development notes

• The app persists layouts locally as versioned JSON.
• Cross-Space indicators are session-scoped and best-effort because macOS does not expose stable Space identifiers through public APIs.
• Layout restore treats visible windows as authoritative for the current Space; if an app cannot create a missing local window, Settle leaves its other-Space windows untouched and reports the unresolved app by name.
• Multi-display layouts identify each captured display, preserve proportional placement inside its visible frame, and fall back to a usable position on the main display when necessary.
• Releases are published as signed DMG assets on GitHub.
• The Homebrew cask is maintained separately in ~/Documents/homebrew-tap.
• Backlog work is tracked in GitHub Issues, not in repository TODO files.

License

Settle is distributed under the terms of the MIT License.