OmniWM

OmniWM is a free, open-source, Developer ID-signed and Apple-notarized tiling window manager for Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 26 or later. It combines Niri-style orientation-aware scrolling containers and Hyprland-style Dwindle BSP layouts, selectable per workspace, with multi-monitor routing and optional local CLI/IPC automation.

Website · Documentation · Install · Compatibility

Demo Video

Contributors

Thank you to everyone who contributed to OmniWM. Your ideas and code made a real difference.

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🏢 By Employer

🎓 By Education

✨ All Contributors

Highlights

• Ghostty-powered quake/sticky terminal
• Native macOS window-tab support
• Local IPC and omniwmctl automation
• Scratchpads and sticky windows for any app
• Overview
• Unified command palette for windows, app menus, clipboard history, OmniWM commands, applications, and files
• Menu Anywhere
• Niri-style tabbed containers and Dwindle tile groups
• Niri-style scrolling and Hyprland-style Dwindle BSP layouts
• Status-bar icon concealment (similar to Ice)
• Keep Awake (similar to Caffeine)
• Interactive workspace and app-icon bar
• Many more features not shown in the video.

Compatibility and Limitations

OmniWM requires Apple Silicon, macOS 26 or later, Accessibility, Input Monitoring, and Displays have separate Spaces. Screen Recording is optional. Read the complete Compatibility, Requirements & Limitations page before installing.

• Dwindle restore scope — After a restart OmniWM rebuilds each Dwindle workspace from the persisted placements: split orientation and ratio, tab-group membership, tab order, and the active tab. Fullscreen state and the selected window are not restored, and once a window without a persisted placement is present, later windows insert normally instead of being placed from the catalog.
• Scratchpad membership — Window membership lasts for the current OmniWM process. Scratchpad labels persist, but memberships do not.

Performance & Trust

OmniWM is built for high responsiveness and smooth, crisp animations.

• Direct macOS integration — OmniWM uses public frameworks and selected Apple private APIs for window management and visual surfaces.
• Refresh-rate-aware animations — Animation pacing follows the active display refresh rate, including 60, 120, and 144 Hz displays.
• SIP stays enabled — Official OmniWM releases do not require disabling System Integrity Protection.
• Signed and notarized releases — Official release builds are Developer ID signed and Apple-notarized.
• Free and open source — OmniWM has no subscriptions, feature paywalls, trial limits, or usage caps and is licensed GPL-2.0-only.

Requirements

• macOS 26+ (Tahoe) on Apple Silicon
• Hidden Bar concealment and optional issue-report rewriting require macOS 27 or later; rewriting also requires enabled Apple Intelligence and an available local model
• Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions (required at launch)
• Screen Recording permission for Overview thumbnails, drag previews, and captured Hidden Bar glyphs (optional)
• Displays have separate spaces ON (the macOS default; OmniWM pauses window management until it is enabled)

Installation

Homebrew

OmniWM is in the official Homebrew cask repository:

brew install --cask omniwm

This installs OmniWM.app and puts omniwmctl on your PATH.

Upgrading

Quit OmniWM first, then run brew upgrade omniwm and relaunch it. Homebrew replaces the app bundle underneath a running OmniWM.

Migrating from the project tap

BarutSRB/tap is retired: 0.6.7 was its final release, and every later version ships only through the official cask. If you installed from the tap, quit OmniWM and run these commands in this order:

brew update
brew upgrade omniwm
brew untap BarutSRB/tap

brew update has to come first: it fetches the retired tap's redirect to the official cask and moves your install over. Untapping before that would offer to uninstall OmniWM. brew reinstall --cask homebrew/cask/omniwm is optional and only switches the install record to the official cask right away.

Nix

OmniWM is packaged in nixpkgs, maintained by mmfallacy and samiser, and Home Manager ships an official programs.omniwm module, maintained by DavSanchez. The package installs the signed release artifact with bsdtar, so the Developer ID signature stays valid, and exposes OmniWM and omniwmctl on PATH. Both currently live on unstable branches only (the nixpkgs unstable channels and Home Manager master) and may trail the latest GitHub release.

Install the package directly:

nix profile install nixpkgs#omniwm

With nix-darwin or Home Manager, add pkgs.omniwm to environment.systemPackages or home.packages.

For a declarative setup, enable the Home Manager module. It installs the package, runs OmniWM as a launchd agent, and writes ~/.config/omniwm/settings.toml from an attribute set or a tracked TOML file:

programs.omniwm = {
  enable = true;
  settings = ./omniwm-settings.toml;
};

Treat the declared TOML file or attribute set as authoritative: edit it and run Home Manager switch to apply changes. OmniWM preserves settings symlinks, so settings backed by a read-only Nix-store file cannot be saved from the GUI. Set programs.omniwm.launchd.enable = false if you prefer to start and quit OmniWM manually instead of having Home Manager manage its launchd agent.

After either installation, complete the macOS setup in steps 3-7 below.

GitHub Releases

1. Download the latest OmniWM-v<version>.zip app archive from Releases
2. Extract and move OmniWM.app to /Applications
3. In System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control, turn ON Displays have separate Spaces
4. Log out of macOS and log back in for that change to take effect unless you had it on already
5. Launch OmniWM and grant Accessibility and Input Monitoring when prompted
6. Optionally grant Screen Recording for capture-derived visuals
7. Return to OmniWM’s permissions window and click Start OmniWM or Continue Without Screen Recording. If a required permission still appears missing, click Check Again

Updates

OmniWM checks for updates by default.

• On launch, OmniWM polls the latest GitHub release at most once per day.
• Updates stay manual. OmniWM does not auto-download or auto-install a new release.
• When a newer release is available, OmniWM shows a centered popup with release notes and actions for Open Release Page, Copy brew upgrade omniwm, Skip This Version, and Not Now.
• You can control this from Settings > General > Updates or trigger a manual check from the status bar menu with Check for Updates....

Documentation

The canonical documentation hub lives at omniwm.app. This README and the guides follow current main; features newer than the latest release are marked Unreleased.

• Documentation Home
• Layout Modes
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Architecture Guide
• IPC & CLI Reference
• Contribution Docs
• Canonical Contributing Guide

IPC and CLI

OmniWM ships with a bundled CLI, omniwmctl, for automation and scripting.

IPC is disabled by default. Enable Enable IPC from the menu bar before using the CLI or any automation.

Diagnostics can be scripted with omniwmctl capture start trace, omniwmctl capture start performance, omniwmctl capture stop, and omniwmctl capture status.

omniwmctl window mark can name, list, focus, summon, and remove runtime window marks. See Window Marks.

For setup, installation options, commands, queries, rules, subscriptions, and security details, see the IPC & CLI Reference.

Quick Start

1. Launch OmniWM from your Applications folder
2. In System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control, turn ON Displays have separate Spaces
3. Log out of macOS and log back in for that change to take effect unless you had it on already
4. Grant Accessibility and Input Monitoring in the launch permissions window, and optionally Screen Recording. Return to that window and click Start OmniWM or Continue Without Screen Recording; use Check Again if a required permission still appears missing
5. Windows will automatically tile in orientation-aware Niri containers: monitors using horizontal orientation show columns that scroll left and right, while vertical orientation shows rows that scroll up and down
6. Keep one macOS Space per display and navigate with OmniWM workspaces; extra native Spaces are tolerated (their windows are left to macOS, not tiled)
7. Use the defaults in Keyboard Shortcuts to navigate, and customize them in Settings > Hotkeys
8. Click the menu bar icon to access Settings, including Settings > General > Updates
9. Enable Start at Login under Settings > General > Startup to launch OmniWM automatically when you log in
10. Use Check for Updates... from the status bar menu whenever you want to run a manual update check
11. On macOS 27+, if you enable Hidden Bar and selected menu-bar icons disappear, right-click or Option-click OmniWM's menu-bar icon to open the Hidden Icons Bar and click any icon to use it.

User Guide

Multi-Monitor Setup

OmniWM uses two display maps for different jobs:

1. Open System Settings > Displays > Arrange. Put the physically largest or widest display at the bottom. Place the next smaller display above and to its right so its bottom-left corner touches the lower display's top-right corner. Continue the same staircase for every additional display. This macOS map is a technical arrangement used for actual window placement; it does not need to look like your desk.
2. Open OmniWM Settings > Monitors and arrange the OmniWM routing map to match where the displays really sit on your desk. Tiles can be separated by empty grid cells, but every display must remain connected through a chain of shared rows or columns. A diagonal-only tile is disconnected and cannot exchange directional focus, window moves, or mouse warp.
3. Assign at least one workspace to every connected display. Window moves between displays need a destination workspace, so the setup assistant will not finish while a display is uncovered. You can reassign an existing workspace or explicitly add one for that display.
4. Leave Mouse Warp turned on for the recommended experience. It lets the pointer cross between displays according to the real-desk OmniWM map even though macOS uses the staircase.

The setup assistant opens automatically when OmniWM first sees multiple displays. To review or redo it later, choose Run Monitor Setup… in Settings > Monitors. The assistant's Show Numbers on Screens action helps match each physical display to its tile. Routing, workspace-home, and Mouse Warp changes remain drafts until you finish the assistant.

Custom arrangements are remembered for each set of connected displays, so home and work can keep different positions for the same laptop display. Reconnecting a saved set restores its arrangement automatically. If there is no exact match, OmniWM inherits the smallest saved arrangement containing every connected display; an uncovered set or an invalid grid follows macOS. Editing, resetting, or finishing setup saves only the connected set, leaving any larger arrangement unchanged. Simply connecting displays or opening Settings does not save an arrangement. Workspace assignments and other per-monitor settings remain separate.

Move Window Across Monitor at Edge sends a window beyond a workspace edge to the adjacent routed display and always follows it. Dedicated monitor-move actions work independently of this setting and use Follow Window to Monitor, which also controls focus after ordinary window or column transfers to another workspace.

Workspace homes can be Main, Secondary, Tertiary, or a specific display. By default Main is the display with the macOS menu bar and Secondary and Tertiary are the next displays in arrangement order. The Monitor Roles list in Settings > Monitors lets you rank displays instead: the highest-ranked connected display is Main, then Secondary, then Tertiary, and disconnected entries are skipped, so two external displays can hold fixed roles at your desk while the built-in display takes over when you unplug. The Quake terminal's Main Monitor option follows the same ranking.

Layout Modes

OmniWM offers two layout engines that you can switch between per workspace:

Niri (Orientation-Aware Scrolling Containers) - On monitors using horizontal orientation, windows form vertical columns that scroll left and right; in vertical orientation, they form horizontal rows that scroll up and down. Each container can hold multiple windows or be "tabbed" (multiple windows, one visible at a time).

Hyprland Dwindle (BSP) - Binary space partition layout that recursively divides screen space. Each new window splits the space in half, and a tile can group multiple windows as tabs. Best for traditional tiling with predictable layouts.

Use the Toggle Workspace Layout shortcut below to switch layouts per workspace or configure them in GUI settings.

Keyboard Shortcuts

All shortcuts are customizable in Settings > Hotkeys. Hyper is the literal Control + Option + Shift + Command chord by default; which modifiers make up Hyper is configurable in Settings > Hotkeys (for example, exclude Shift to keep Hyper + Shift + … free for extra bindings). Changing the combination retargets every shortcut that currently resolves to Hyper onto the new one, so the shortcut list updates in place as you toggle the modifiers. Optionally pick a System Hyper Trigger — a single key (Caps Lock, F13–F20, or a left- or right-side modifier) or an extra mouse button that acts as Hyper while held (this needs Input Monitoring permission). Leave the trigger as None if you already produce Hyper another way, such as a Karabiner Elements remap. The tables below list all the default hotkeys:

Layout legend:

• Shared works in any active layout.
• Niri works only when the active workspace uses the Niri layout.
• Dwindle works only when the active workspace uses the Dwindle layout.

Settings > Hotkeys lists all actions that can be assigned a shortcut, including advanced actions.

If a shortcut does not fire: Check Settings > Hotkeys and Settings > Troubleshooting for registration issues, then look for another hotkey tool, such as skhd or Raycast, still running with the same binding. HotkeyClash can help inspect possible conflicts in running apps, supported config files, and macOS shortcuts. It does not parse Raycast's shortcut settings. Disable or reassign the conflicting binding and retry before editing settings.toml.

Workspace

When you create workspace 10 or higher, Settings > Hotkeys adds its Switch, Move, and Move Column actions as Unassigned.

Focus

Move Window

Monitor

The workspace-to-monitor actions target the active workspace and intentionally use the same temporary runtime override as omniwmctl workspace move-to-monitor --force. They do not rewrite the workspace's Home Monitor or swap workspaces, and unsafe fullscreen, hidden-app, scratchpad, or focus states still block the move.

The window-to-monitor actions send the focused window directly to the current workspace on the adjacent routed display, independently of Move Window Across Monitor at Edge. The destination display must have at least one assigned workspace, which the Monitor Setup assistant verifies. They do not wrap when no monitor exists in that direction. Follow Window to Monitor controls whether focus follows the window; when it is off, you remain in the source workspace.

Layout

Container and Column

Niri grow/shrink actions use a configurable increment, defaulting to 5% instead of 10%. Change Resize Increment in Niri settings or [niri].resizeStepPercent in TOML (1–100). Explicit omniwmctl size arguments keep their specified amounts.

Consume or Expel Window Left / Right exist as automation-only actions. They are reachable from omniwmctl but never appear in Settings > Hotkeys, because they intentionally cannot be bound to a shortcut.

The daily Focus and Move shortcuts adapt to the active layout and Niri orientation. In horizontal Niri orientation, Move Left / Right consumes or expels across columns while Move Up / Down reorders within a column. Vertical orientation rotates those roles: Move Up / Down consumes or expels across rows while Move Left / Right reorders within a row.

Dwindle Groups

Dwindle groups use the existing Focus and Move bindings, so there are no separate group shortcuts to memorize. Only the active member occupies the tile; the other members stay hidden and the clickable tab rail shows their order.

Moving a tab directly from one existing group into another is intentionally a two-step operation: extract it first, then move the resulting singleton toward the destination group. A singleton at a genuine workspace edge can still use the normal cross-monitor Move behavior; a rejected group mutation does not fall through to tile swapping or monitor movement.

The unassigned advanced actions are available in Settings > Hotkeys. Focus Down or Top / Up or Bottom always wraps within the active Niri column or Dwindle group. Reorder Window Up / Down changes the active member's position by one without wrapping. Move Container is the whole-structure escape hatch and never transfers to another monitor at a workspace edge. Dwindle join/extract and Move Container operations are intentionally unavailable while Overview is open; leave Overview before changing a Dwindle tree.

Quake Terminal (Inside Terminal)

Unreleased — available when building from main. Customize tab and pane shortcuts with Ghostty keybind entries in ~/.config/ghostty/config.ghostty (or your existing Ghostty config). User bindings override the defaults below; unbind removes a binding. Reload inside Quake with Cmd + Shift + ,, or relaunch OmniWM. The global toggle stays in Settings → Hotkeys and OmniWM's settings.toml.

keybind = cmd+t=unbind
keybind = ctrl+shift+t=new_tab
keybind = cmd+enter=new_split:right
keybind = cmd+shift+enter=close_surface

See Ghostty's keybinding syntax. Quake supports new_tab, close_tab, goto_tab, next_tab, previous_tab, last_tab, new_split, goto_split, close_surface, and equalize_splits, alongside Ghostty's terminal actions such as copy, paste, and font sizing.

Features

Quake Terminal

A true quake/sticky terminal powered by Ghostty's libghostty. The default Center position fades it in place; Top, Bottom, Left, and Right slide it in from that screen edge.

• Toggle it from the global shortcut shown in Keyboard Shortcuts
• Supports multiple tabs and splits within tabs
• Tab and pane shortcuts are listed in Quake Terminal (Inside Terminal)
• Mouse resize by dragging edges; Option + drag to move
• Configure position, width and height as percentages of the monitor's available screen area, opacity, and background effect in Settings
• Choose Standard Blur with an adjustable radius or native Regular Glass/Clear Glass; switching effects preserves the saved Standard Blur radius
• Auto-hides on focus loss (optional)
• Command-click an OSC 8 hyperlink to open http/https links in your default browser or mailto links in your mail app; other schemes are blocked

OmniWM remembers one custom size and position. It reuses that frame when it fits the selected monitor; otherwise it uses the configured position and percentages. Reset to Default Position appears in Settings once a custom frame is in use.

Quake Terminal loads Ghostty's normal configuration files and their included files, so font, theme, and other terminal preferences can be shared. OmniWM applies its Quake background opacity and effect afterward; configure those in Settings → Quake Terminal.

Command Palette

Quickly search windows, app menus, clipboard history, OmniWM commands, applications, or files from one shared palette:

• Open it from the global shortcut shown in Keyboard Shortcuts
• Use Tab / Shift + Tab to cycle forward or backward through the available modes
• Use Cmd + 1 for Windows, Cmd + 2 for Menu, Cmd + 3 for Clipboard, Cmd + 4 for Commands, Cmd + 5 for Applications, and Cmd + 6 for Files
• Type to search; mark-name matches come first in Windows mode, then window title, app name, and workspace name, with focus recency breaking ties
• Windows mode shows window marks and finds windows by mark name; its Mark and Remove Mark buttons act on the selected window
• Menu results always show keyboard shortcuts when available
• Commands are grouped by category until you search; each row shows its layout and current shortcut, including unassigned commands
• In Commands mode, Enter runs the selected command; commands for another layout stay visible but cannot be selected
• Up / Down move the selection
• Enter activates the selected result
• Windows from macOS-hidden apps remain searchable with a Hidden badge; selecting one unhides its app and focuses that exact window
• In Windows mode, Shift + Enter summons the selected window to the right when available, or moves it into an empty current workspace, including floating windows. Floating windows cannot be summoned right
• In Clipboard mode, Enter copies the selected entry; Shift + Enter pastes it into the previous app when that target is still available
• Applications and Files open in a browse grid; switch either mode to a list from the view menu
• Files shows recent documents before typing, supports type filters, and can reveal a selection in Finder with Cmd + Enter
• Escape dismisses the palette

Clipboard history starts disabled. Open Clipboard mode (Cmd + 3) and click Enable, or set clipboard.historyEnabled = true in settings.toml. History retains text, rich text, HTML, images, file references, and safe native formats within the configured limits; concealed, transient, and recognized password-manager content is skipped. A selected item has a preview, each row can be pasted or pinned, and Clear removes unpinned history. See the command palette guide for storage details.

Menu Anywhere

Open the frontmost app's menus at your cursor with a global shortcut. Menu Anywhere builds a native floating menu from the menus, submenus, and shortcuts the app exposes through Accessibility.

Overview Mode

Overview supports trackpad opening and closing, with finger tracking when animations are enabled.

See all windows at once with thumbnails:

• Open it from the global shortcut shown in Keyboard Shortcuts
• Configure the 50–150% baseline zoom plus backdrop and window-border colors in Settings → Overview
• Click a window to focus it
• Type to filter/search windows; Backspace deletes search text
• Alt (Option) + Shift + Mouse Scroll temporarily zooms the current overview; the next opening starts from the configured baseline
• Arrow Keys navigate spatially; Left / Right stay within the current workspace. Tab / Shift + Tab cycle forward or backward through matching windows, and keyboard navigation automatically scrolls the selected thumbnail into view
• Assigned structural move, reorder, consume/expel, and workspace-transfer shortcuts operate on the selected thumbnail while Overview is open
• In Niri workspaces, reorder windows and columns, consume or expel windows, move windows into or out of columns, move windows across workspaces and monitors, and move whole columns between Niri workspaces
• Adjacent-workspace fallback actions can create the next compatible unused numeric workspace when moving past the current workspace edge
• In Dwindle workspaces, Overview supports moving windows across workspaces and closing them without adding Overview-only tree placement controls
• A successful move keeps the moved window selected and activates its destination workspace and monitor behind Overview
• Drag a thumbnail onto a workspace, an exact window position, or a Niri column gap; layouts without an exact placement equivalent fall back to moving it to the destination workspace. Press and release without dragging to focus it
• Command + W closes the selected window once per press and keeps Overview open; selection advances only after the window has closed
• Enter, Escape, the configured Overview shortcut, and clicking the backdrop dismiss Overview and focus the current selection; Escape does not clear search first
• If another application takes focus, Overview dismisses without stealing focus back

Workspace Bar

A visual indicator showing your workspaces:

• Displays open apps per workspace
• Click to switch workspaces or jump to that app
• When Deduplicate App Icons is enabled, multiple windows from one app share an icon; click a grouped icon to open their window list, while a single-window icon focuses that window directly
• Marks macOS-hidden windows with an eye-slash badge; selecting a hidden window unhides its app and focuses that exact window
• Configure position, height, and appearance in Settings
• Optionally show a System Stats button that opens a CPU, memory, GPU, disk, and uptime popup. Toggle System Stats and omniwmctl command toggle-system-stats drive the same popup, and both do nothing unless a monitor currently shows that workspace-bar button
• Optionally hide the bar on a monitor while that monitor shows a macOS native fullscreen window, and bring it back on exit (Hide in Native Fullscreen); reserved tiled layout space is left untouched so windows do not shuffle around the fullscreen session
• Exclude individual apps or choose alternate app icons across all monitors in Settings

Workspace-bar appearance controls are optional and also support per-monitor overrides:

• Transparent Background removes the outer bar material, tint, and border; icons remain clickable. It takes precedence over Solid Black Background.
• Solid Black Background uses opaque black instead of the outer bar's material and tint.
• Inactive Icon Opacity adjusts non-focused app icons. Leaving it unset preserves the standard opacity for each kind of item; hidden-app icons retain their hidden-state appearance. Values are limited to 0–1, and nonfinite values are treated as unset.
• Disable Show Item Backgrounds to remove the backgrounds behind workspace groups, floating windows, scratchpads, and the stats button.
• Disable Show Accent Highlights to remove focused-item accent outlines and glows without changing focus behavior.
• Bottom / Left / Right placement docks at the usable display edge. Side bars stack upright content and scroll when needed; Bar Thickness controls their width. See Workspace Bar for details.
• Fill Left of Notch covers the menu-bar band from the display's left edge to the notch, or to the display midpoint when no notch is present. This deliberately covers application menus; choose another notch mode to access them again. At top positions, this mode uses the menu-bar height, overrides position/offset/height controls, and does not reserve extra tiled layout space. It always hides on displays showing native fullscreen content. Bottom/Left/Right ignore notch modes and follow Hide in Native Fullscreen.

Existing appearance stays unchanged until you opt in. For example, edit these keys inside the existing [workspaceBar] table (do not replace the complete configuration with this fragment):

transparentBackground = false
solidBlackBackground = true
inactiveIconOpacity = 0.9
showItemBackgrounds = false
showAccentHighlights = false
notchMode = "fillLeftOfNotch"

Omitted keys preserve the existing appearance.

Workspace-bar icon overrides can also be configured in settings.toml. Quote bundle IDs so TOML treats each dotted identifier as one key:

[workspaceBar.iconOverrides]
"com.example.App" = "icons/custom.icns"
"com.cmuxterm.app" = "bundle-resource:AppIconDark"

bundle-resource: loads a named image packaged inside the selected app. The Settings picker discovers likely app-icon resources on demand; runtime-generated or downloaded Dock icons may not be available. Absolute paths are used as written, ~ expands to your home directory, and relative paths are resolved from the directory containing settings.toml. Overrides affect only the workspace bar. A valid override takes precedence over the app's standard icon; an unavailable or invalid image falls back to the standard icon, then the dashed placeholder when no app icon is available. OmniWM does not watch image files; use Replace to reload a file changed in place.

Hidden Bar

Conceal selected menu-bar icons and reach them from a panel:

• Concealment requires macOS 27 or later; core window management supports macOS 26
• Pick the apps to hide in Settings > Hidden Bar
• Hidden Bar runs while the workspace bar is on; turning the bar off shows the hidden icons again
• Right-click (or Option-click) the OmniWM menu bar icon to open the Hidden Icons Bar; click an icon to reveal and use it
• Revealed icons re-hide automatically after a configurable interval
• An optional global hotkey is available and starts unassigned

Tips

• Workspaces - Create named workspaces in Settings to organize by project or context (You can use emojis 🥳)
• App Rules - Exclude problematic apps from tiling or assign them to specific workspaces
• Mouse - Hold the configured mouse-move modifier and drag to swap tiled windows. Niri swaps individual windows; add Shift to insert into a column. Dwindle swaps whole tiles, including their tab groups. The modifier defaults to Option and can be changed or disabled in Settings → Mouse & Trackpad. In Overview, dragging a thumbnail needs no modifier and targets a workspace, window position, or Niri column gap
• Mouse Resize - Hold the configured right-mouse resize modifier (Option by default) and right-drag a tiled window to resize it in either layout
• Scroll Gestures (Mouse) - Hold Option + Shift + Mouse Scroll Wheel (default, configurable) to scroll along the active Niri primary axis: left/right in horizontal orientation or up/down in vertical orientation
• Trackpad Gestures - Use 2/3/4-finger gestures (configurable) along the active Niri primary axis; direction can be inverted
• Window Move & Resize (Trackpad) - Opt-in in Settings → Mouse & Trackpad: drag without clicking to move or resize the tiled window under the cursor in either layout; lift your fingers to drop. Defaults are four fingers to move and three to resize. Column scrolling is on by default with three fingers, so the Resize row first offers Set Up…; pick another finger count (two fingers can intercept normal scrolling in apps) or turn off Scroll columns. Choose finger counts unused by other enabled gestures; Set Up… previews conflicts and lets you choose which gestures to turn off before applying the assignment. Turn off matching macOS gestures in System Settings → Trackpad → More Gestures to prevent them firing alongside window gestures.
• Workspace Swipe (Trackpad) - Opt-in in Settings → Mouse & Trackpad: swipe with a configurable finger count (2/3/4) and axis (horizontal/vertical) to switch to the next/previous workspace on the monitor under the cursor, one switch per swipe; when sharing fingers with enabled column scrolling in Niri, workspace swipes use the perpendicular axis on each display; otherwise they use the selected axis. For vertical swipes with three or four fingers, first turn off Mission Control in  → System Settings → Trackpad → More Gestures so macOS does not intercept the gesture.

Configuration

Access settings by clicking OmniWM's status bar icon and selecting Settings or App Rules. Mouse and gesture settings live in Settings under Mouse & Trackpad. The Trackpad Gestures panel shows all five assignments together. Finger selectors work while a gesture is off; Set Up… explains conflicts and offers explicit reassignment choices before turning anything off. Expand a gesture row for its additional controls.

Settings > General also carries a System-wide Window Corners control (macOS 26.4+). It writes the system-wide preference, so it changes standard Mac app windows everywhere — including windows OmniWM does not manage — and apps that draw their own window chrome may ignore it. Affected apps must be fully quit and reopened before the new radius applies.

OmniWM stores its editable config at ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/omniwm/settings.toml; that file is the canonical settings source and is live-reloaded when saved from an editor.

XDG_CONFIG_HOME and XDG_STATE_HOME are honored only when set to absolute paths; otherwise OmniWM uses ~/.config and ~/.local/state, respectively.

Most configuration is also editable in Settings. Start at Login is managed by macOS, and System-wide Window Corners changes a macOS preference; neither is stored in settings.toml. Clipboard retention limits and scratchpad labels are edited in TOML.

• Reveal Settings File and Edit Settings File open the canonical TOML file and recreate it from the running settings if it was deleted.
• updateChecksEnabled is part of the persisted settings model, so it round-trips through settings.toml.
• Clipboard history, last-check timestamps, skipped-release state, and the persisted window restore catalog live in ${XDG_STATE_HOME:-$HOME/.local/state}/omniwm and stay out of dotfile-oriented config storage.

Scratchpads

A scratchpad is a slot that holds any number of floating windows and overlays them on the workspace you are looking at. There are ten slots, numbered 1 to 10; a slot with no windows in it is inert and invisible.

• Assign Focused Window to Scratchpad N moves the focused window into slot N, floating it if it was tiled. It stays visible if slot N is already revealed; otherwise it is parked off-screen. Pressing the same shortcut again on a window already in slot N returns it to the layout.
• Toggle Scratchpad N reveals eligible windows in slot N on the monitor you are interacting with, or parks them again if they are already there. Revealing a slot parks whichever slot was showing, so at most one scratchpad is on screen at a time.
• A revealed scratchpad follows you across workspace switches and stays up until you toggle it off. If it is showing on another monitor, its shortcut summons it to the one you are on.
• Revealed windows are ordinary floating windows: whether clicking something underneath pushes them behind it is governed by the usual focus and raise behaviour, including Raise Window When Focus Follows Mouse.

Hotkey and CLI toggles leave macOS-hidden apps hidden and skip windows suspended in native fullscreen. Clicking a workspace-bar pill while the slot is hidden can unhide its apps; exit native fullscreen before revealing a suspended window.

Each non-empty slot gets a pill in the workspace bar showing its name and its windows' icons; clicking the pill toggles that scratchpad. Slots are identified by number everywhere, and an optional label replaces the number in the workspace bar and in omniwmctl output:

[scratchpads.labels]
1 = "term"
3 = "COMMS"

Scratchpad membership lasts for the lifetime of the OmniWM process; only the labels are persisted.

App Rules

Open App Rules from OmniWM's status-bar menu to configure window-matching behavior. Rules can match by bundle ID, app-name substring, title substring or regex, and AX role/subrole. More-specific matches win; ties follow list order.

• Layout (Automatic / Tile / Float) - Leave classification automatic, or force matching windows to tile or float
• Assign to Workspace - Use a valid workspace assignment as the initial default whenever the matching app currently has no tracked windows. Additional windows open on the workspace active when creation began. Automatic rule reevaluation leaves managed windows in place, while explicit rule application can move them. Readmission, structural replacements, and unique persisted boot-restore matches preserve their existing placement continuity.
• Initial Container Primary Span (Niri) - Start matching resizable windows at 5–100% when they create or claim a new container; the container remains freely resizable afterward
• Minimum Size - Prevent the layout engine from sizing windows below a threshold

Structural admission runs before ordinary rule ranking. Help tags, input-method surfaces, and WindowServer children of another window stay unmanaged. At ordinary WindowServer levels, a closeable, parentless accessory-app AXWindow is eligible for normal classification. Buttonless accessory roots, prohibited-app roots, non-AXWindow roles, and otherwise unsupported AX subroles require an identifying rule with exact axRole and axSubrole values plus a Tile or Float layout. Parentless roots at status-window level or higher use the same precise shape, but only a user rule can opt them in; built-in rules cannot. A broad bundle/title rule or Automatic layout does not cross these gates.

Initial container primary span is a one-time seed. It controls width in horizontal orientation and height in vertical orientation. Niri's Single Window Fit still takes visual precedence for a lone window, and physical minimum-size constraints can clamp the resolved pixel size without changing the stored initial proportion.

The equivalent TOML rule uses a proportion:

[[appRules]]
bundleId = "net.kovidgoyal.kitty"
initialContainerPrimarySpan = 0.5

Building from Source

Follow the contributor quick start for Xcode requirements, automatic dependency setup, and a separate OmniWM Dev app with independent settings. The guide covers rebuilding, switching back to your normal app, and verifying a pull request.

Community Integrations

• omacosy is an Omarchy-inspired macOS desktop setup that supports OmniWM as a tiling window manager, with a custom status bar and coordinated desktop themes.
• OmniWM Computer Use is a community-maintained Codex skill for focus-safe Computer Use, browser automation, and app testing through omniwmctl across OmniWM workspaces and displays.
• OmniCast is a community-maintained Raycast extension for controlling OmniWM with plain-English search and commands through omniwmctl.

Related Forks

• Nehir is an endorsed OmniWM fork focused on a narrower, more opinionated Niri-style scrolling-column workflow. It may be friendlier for beginners who want guided defaults and a smaller feature surface, while OmniWM remains the broader upstream project with multiple layout modes and the full feature set.
• choru-k/OmniWM is an interesting personal OmniWM fork experimenting with opt-in workflow layers on top of upstream OmniWM, including zone anchors for the Niri strip, a configurable F13-F20 leader-key chord menu, tabbed-column keyboard cycling, and trackpad-friendly modifier resizing. It is best read as a power-user workflow branch rather than a replacement for the main OmniWM release.

Community

Questions, setup help, and config sharing happen on the OmniWM Discord. Confirmed bugs still belong on GitHub — see Reporting Bugs. Community integrations and related forks are listed above and on the Community & Support page.

Support

If you find OmniWM useful, consider supporting development:

• GitHub Sponsors
• PayPal

Reporting Bugs

The best way to report a bug is from inside OmniWM: open the status-bar menu and choose Report a Bug…. That opens the in-app report form, where recording or attaching trace and crash evidence is optional. On submit, OmniWM prepares one fresh diagnostic .log (with any evidence you selected appended), reveals it in Finder for you to attach, and opens a pre-filled GitHub issue — OmniWM never sees your GitHub login. Review the .log before attaching it to a public issue: it can include settings, app and window titles, and title-based rule matchers.

Prefer the web? The GitHub issue form works too; please include your OmniWM and macOS versions there.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub.

Start with CONTRIBUTING.md for the actual project guidelines, expectations, and preferred direction.

For deeper technical context, edit the source pages used by the documentation site:

• Architecture Guide
• IPC & CLI Reference
• Contribution Docs

The similarly named files under docs/ are compatibility stubs that direct old links to omniwm.app.

License

OmniWM is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0-only. Copyright (C) 2026 BarutSRB — https://github.com/OmniNull/OmniWM.

Every source file carries an SPDX license header. Forks and redistributions must retain these notices and the LICENSE file, and remain GPL-2.0-only with source available.