Snapping and flinging are different jobs
A snapper answers a placement question: how do I get this window into a clean, repeatable layout? Rectangle does it for free with keyboard shortcuts, and Magnet does it with a polished drag-to-edge gesture. If your day is built around tiling two or four windows into a tidy grid, a snapper is exactly the right tool and flingdows does not try to take its place.
flingdows answers a motion question: how do I move a window a long way without dragging it the whole distance? You flick it and a friction model carries it the rest of the way, then an elastic spring catches it at the edge. That fling is the thing none of the snappers do, and it is the whole point of flingdows.
Where they overlap, and where they don't
Today the honest line is that they overlap very little. Rectangle and Magnet have mature preset snapping; flingdows has the fling. Corner and edge snapping presets are on the flingdows roadmap, but they are not shipped yet, so flingdows is not a complete substitute for a snapper right now.
That is why a common setup is to run both: a snapper for the tidy halves and quarters you reach for by reflex, and flingdows for the fast, expressive moves across a large screen. flingdows being free and open source under MIT means adding it alongside Rectangle costs nothing and you can read exactly what it does to your windows.
Rectangle and Magnet vs flingdows
| Rectangle | Magnet | flingdows | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core idea | Snap to a zone | Snap to a zone | Throw with momentum |
| How you move a window | Keyboard shortcuts | Drag to a screen edge | Flick and release with speed |
| Preset half/quarter snapping | Yes, mature | Yes, mature | On the roadmap |
| Window physics (inertia, edge spring-back) | No | No | Yes |
| Price | Free | Paid one-time | Free |
| Open source | Yes | No | Yes (MIT) |
| Best at | Repeatable tiling | Drag-to-snap tiling | Fast, fluid moves across a big screen |
frequently asked
- Can flingdows fully replace Rectangle?
- Not yet. Rectangle's strength is mature preset snapping into halves and quarters, which flingdows doesn't ship today (it's on the roadmap). flingdows adds the fling gesture Rectangle doesn't have, so for now many people run both.
- Why would I use both at once?
- They cover different needs. Use a snapper for the tidy, repeatable layouts you reach for by reflex, and flingdows for throwing a window quickly across a large or multi-display desktop. flingdows is free, so adding it alongside Rectangle costs nothing.
- Is flingdows cheaper than Magnet?
- Magnet is a paid one-time purchase; flingdows is free and open source under the MIT license. Rectangle is also free, but it's keyboard-driven snapping rather than physics-based flinging.
- Do any of these need special permissions?
- All three need macOS Accessibility access, because that's the only way an app can move other apps' windows. Because flingdows is open source, you can verify it uses that access only to move windows.
Last updated June 8, 2026