Fremspace
Source Download

Every window
has a place.

Fremspace gives every desktop of every display a layout of slots. Apps open in their slot, stay there, and are all back where they were after a restart.

Download for macOS Read the source

Free and open source. macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

Drag a window away from its slot and let go.

Draw the layout once.

A layout is a few slots drawn on a desktop, each with the apps that live in it. From then on Fremspace does the arranging.

A layout for each desktop

Split a desktop into slots and say which apps live where. A window that opens goes to its slot, on its desktop, on its display.

Focus

One shortcut gives a slot the whole desktop. The same shortcut puts everything back.

⌃⌥⌘Space

Stacks

Several windows share a slot. A shortcut goes through them, and a mark says which one is in front.

⌃⌥⌘⇥

Drawers

Windows parked off the side of a display, slid in when you need them: your notes, a chat, a calendar.

⌃⌥⌘Lleft⌃⌥⌘Dright

Back after a restart

At login Fremspace opens the apps that have a slot and puts every window back, on the right desktop.

One setup per set of displays

The desk, the laptop alone, another office: Fremspace applies the configuration that matches the displays connected. A travel version turns the slots of the big displays into desktops of the laptop.

One field finds it.

The palette knows where every window is, on every desktop. Type a few letters and press Return. Without typing anything it is a switcher: the window you had before is already selected.

⌃⌥⌘Kopens it

Windows
on any desktop, by title or app
Apps
to open, or bring forward when they run
Desktops and scenes
by the name you gave them
Commands
everything a shortcut can do

    This one is a drawing, and it takes real typing: click the field.

    A scene sets the whole desk.

    A scene is a named set of desktops that several displays show together. Showing it switches every display it names at once. A display it does not name keeps what it shows.

    On each display a scene can also put a slot in Focus and open or close a drawer, and it opens its apps that are not running. The editor makes one from what the displays show now.

    Choose a scene. Choose it again to leave it.

    Four shortcuts
    ⌃⌥⌘1 to 4 show the first four scenes. With Caps Lock as ⌃⌥⌘, it is Caps Lock and the digit.
    By name
    The palette lists every scene. Type a few letters of its name and press Return.
    From another tool
    A link shows a scene from a launcher, a button deck or a script: open -g fremspace://scene/Council
    Leave it the same way
    Show a scene again while it is shown and you leave it. Each display it switched goes back to the desktop it showed before, the Focus it gave is given back and the drawers it moved go back as they were.

    The notch says where you are.

    macOS never tells you the name of a desktop. When a display changes desktop, Fremspace hangs its name from the notch for a moment, or under the menu bar on a display without one.

    Rest the pointer on the notch and the map of every desktop opens. A click takes you there. The notch at the top of this page works the same way.

    Hands stay on the keyboard.

    Every command has a shortcut and every shortcut can be changed. They all begin with ⌃⌥⌘ by default.

    Three keys are a handful. Fremspace can make Caps Lock stand for them, with nothing else to install.

    Off unless you switch it on. While it is on, Caps Lock no longer locks capitals, and the mapping is removed when Fremspace quits.

    Choose a command to see its keys. The keyboard also lights up under your own.

    Set up in an editor, kept in one file.

    Open the editor from the menu bar. Make a configuration from the connected displays, split a desktop into slots, choose the apps, Save. Nothing changes until you save.

    Capture this desktop
    starts a layout from the windows as they are now.
    Scenes
    switch several displays to their desktops at once.
    Status
    a page that lists what needs attention, and says so when a macOS update broke something.
    Links
    for launchers, button decks and scripts: open -g fremspace://desktop/Web
    Calls
    the meeting window of Microsoft Teams or Zoom goes to full screen when the call starts.
    The Fremspace editor: a desktop split into three slots, with the apps of each slot and the options of the selected one.

    Before you install.

    A window manager sees and moves every window on your Mac. Here is what Fremspace needs and what it does with it.

    It needs Accessibility

    That is the permission macOS gives to apps that read and move other apps' windows. Fremspace asks for it at first launch and does nothing without it. One option, window previews, needs Screen Recording as well: it is off unless you switch it on, and macOS asks only then.

    It never goes online

    There is no account, no telemetry and no network code. Your layouts are one JSON file in your Library folder.

    It uses private parts of macOS

    macOS has no public way to send a window to another desktop. Fremspace uses the window server's own calls for that, so a macOS update can break it until Fremspace is updated. Its Status page tells you when that happens.

    It is not on the App Store

    For the same reason. The download is signed and notarized by Apple, and the source is there to read.

    Get Fremspace.

    Free and open source under the MIT license. Version 0.1.0, macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

    Download Fremspace 0.1.0 What is in this version

    Install it

    1. Open the disk image.
    2. Drag Fremspace to Applications.
    3. Launch it and allow Accessibility.

    It lives in the menu bar.

    Or build it yourself

    It takes the Command Line Tools and nothing else.

    git clone https://github.com/fdussert/fremspace.git
cd fremspace
scripts/build.sh && open dist/Fremspace.app