Why I Built a Native macOS Window Manager from Scratch with SwiftUI

Veysel Okatan — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:23:48 +0000

Managing multiple windows on macOS has always felt slightly incomplete out of the box. While native split view helps, power users often find themselves missing flexible snap areas, multi-display workflow optimizations, and gesture-driven control without heavy background resource usage.

As an independent software developer, I decided to tackle this problem natively. Instead of relying on bloated web wrappers or heavy background processes, I built NeoTiler from the ground up using Swift and SwiftUI.

Core Architectural Goals

Lightweight & Efficient: Keeping memory footprint under 25 MB and CPU usage minimal while idling in the menu bar.
Granular Snapping: Moving beyond simple halves and quarters by adding thirds, sixths, custom snap grids, and multi-monitor cursor synchronization.
Privacy by Design: Zero tracking, zero telemetry, and 100% offline local processing using macOS Accessibility APIs.

Building native tools for the macOS ecosystem requires careful attention to OS lifecycle changes and native keyboard event handling.

You can check out the full feature set and project details at getneotiler.com. I would love to hear feedback from fellow Swift and macOS developers on window tiling ergonomics and native UI patterns!

DEV Community: Veysel Okatan

Why I Built a Native macOS Window Manager from Scratch with SwiftUI

Core Architectural Goals