macOS Sequoia finally brought proper window tiling to the Mac: drag a window to the edge of the screen and it snaps neatly into place, two apps side by side. It is genuinely useful — but Apple also added small margins around every tiled window, leaving thin gaps of around eight pixels between windows. If you prefer your windows sitting flush, edge to edge, like the old Split View, those gaps can be surprisingly distracting.
The fix is a single toggle in System Settings. No Terminal commands, no third-party window managers, no restarts. Below is where to find it, what the neighboring tiling options do, and how to switch tiling off completely if you would rather arrange windows by hand.
Step-by-step: make tiled windows sit flush
- Open System Settings. Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen and choose System Settings.
- Go to Desktop & Dock. In the settings sidebar, click Desktop & Dock — the section with wallpaper and window-behavior options. If your app list is getting long while you work, our guide on quickly opening the installed apps list in macOS 26 shows how to keep track of everything.
- Scroll to the Windows section. Keep scrolling down the Desktop & Dock pane until you reach the group of options labeled Windows, where all the tiling toggles live.
- Turn off “Tiled windows have margins”. Flip this toggle off. The roughly 8-pixel padding disappears immediately: drag two windows to opposite edges of the screen and they will snap together flush, with no gap and no visible seam between them.
- Fine-tune the neighboring toggles (optional). Two related options sit right next to the margins toggle: “Tile by dragging windows to screen edges” controls whether dragging to an edge snaps windows at all, and “Hold the Option key while dragging windows to tile” changes tiling so it only triggers while you hold Option. Adjust them to match how you like to work — for example, hold-to-tile is great if you often drag windows near edges without wanting them to snap.
- Know the difference. Turning off margins does not disable tiling itself; it only removes the padding. If you want to kill automatic tiling entirely — for instance, because you position every window manually — switch off “Tile by dragging windows to screen edges” instead.
If it still doesn’t work
- Changed the toggle but nothing looks different? The new setting applies to newly tiled windows. Un-snap and re-snap your windows by dragging them to the screen edges again — or toggle tiling off and back on once to force a refresh.
- Gaps remain in one particular app? Some full-screen apps and older software do not participate in tiling at all. The margins toggle only affects windows that the system tiles; it cannot change apps that draw their own windows outside the tiling system.
- System Settings looks empty or crashes? Restart your Mac and try again. Apple’s own support documentation for macOS Sequoia window management covers the tiling options in more detail, and outlets like 9to5Mac and MacRumors have written up the same toggle.
Frequently asked questions
Does turning off the margins affect Stage Manager or Mission Control?
No. The “Tiled windows have margins” toggle only affects tiled window layouts. Stage Manager, Spaces, and Mission Control behave exactly the same with the margins on or off.
Will this setting sync to my other Macs?
No — System Settings preferences like this one do not sync through iCloud, so you will need to flip the toggle on each Mac you use. While you are personalizing each machine, you might also like our guide to enabling face lighting during video calls on Mac or changing folder colors and adding emoji in macOS 26.
Wrap up
Window tiling in macOS Sequoia is one of the best productivity additions in years — but the default gaps are not to everyone’s taste. One toggle, “Tiled windows have margins”, is all that stands between you and perfectly flush window layouts. Turn it off once, and every snap from now on sits exactly edge to edge.
