Tiling on native Spaces, SIP left on.

oh wow. you moved a rectangle.

$ dinky workspace 3
$ dinky list-windows --workspace 3
4211 | Ghostty | ~
4388 | Safari  | dinky
$ dinky layout accordion █

Latest release: 0.4

dinky tiles the windows on each native Space and switches Spaces in about 70 ms instead of half a second. It has an accordion mode, focus borders, a TOML config and a dinky command line for scripts and bars. Nothing is injected into the Dock.

It is not a compositor: macOS still draws every window. No scrolling layouts, no animations.

Status: early, in daily use by its author on macOS 27. Expect rough edges.

Private APIs. macOS has no public way to switch Spaces quickly or move a window between them, so dinky uses a synthetic Dock swipe and a few private SkyLight calls. A macOS update can break them.

Requirements

• macOS 27 on Apple silicon. Only 27.0 has been tried.
• Accessibility permission. The first run asks.

Install

brew install --cask mikker/tap/dinky
open -a dinky

Or download the app and drag it to Applications, then put the command line on your PATH:

ln -s /Applications/dinky.app/Contents/MacOS/dinky /usr/local/bin/dinky

dinky lives in the menu bar and updates itself.

From source

Needs Swift 6 and just.

git clone https://github.com/mikker/Dinky.git && cd Dinky
IDENTITY="Apple Development: Your Name (TEAMID)" just install
open build/dinky.app

just install builds and signs build/dinky.app and links the CLI into ~/.local/bin. Sign with a stable identity (security find-identity -p codesigning): macOS ties the Accessibility grant to the signature, so ad-hoc builds lose it on every rebuild.

First run

dinky writes ~/.config/dinky/dinky.toml, asks for Accessibility, and offers once to turn off “When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows” (Desktop & Dock > Mission Control). With that off, Cmd-Tab and Dock clicks switch Spaces the fast way instead of sliding. Saying no is fine.

The menu bar shows the current workspace. dinky doctor checks the config and the macOS settings dinky depends on.

Uninstall

Quit dinky, delete the app and ~/.config/dinky, and remove it from Accessibility and Login Items. To get the Cmd-Tab slide back:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool true && killall Dock

Known limits

• Only one display has been tested properly. Switching a display the pointer is not on may flicker the pointer.
• dinky creates and removes Spaces to keep one per workspace, but leaves a leftover Space with windows alone.
• Apps refuse some sizes (Safari’s minimum width, Terminal’s grid). dinky lays out around them, but tiles can overlap or leave gaps.
• macOS cannot focus a window on another Space, so dinky switches first.

Credits

• yabai (MIT): SkyLight signatures, window filtering, focus and event handling. SIP-on paths only.
• mimi (MIT): the fast Dock swipe and the SkyLight symbol lookup.
• AeroSpace (MIT): key syntax, commands and the accordion.
• JankyBorders (GPL-3.0): borders, studied only.
• Tuna: an earlier Dock swipe.
• bobrwm (MIT): creating Spaces.

MIT licensed.