WinMux

Sidebar and tab groups for AeroSpace tiling on macOS

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Category
Window Manager
WM Type
hybrid
License
free
Open Source
Yes
Keybindings
Yes
Scripting
Yes
Last Update
2026-05-12

Features

  • Workspace sidebar with drag-and-drop
  • Browser-like window tab groups
  • Managed tiling with 6 intent zones
  • Unmanaged corner snapping mode
  • Exposé window overview (⌃+i)
  • Settings GUI for shortcuts
  • TOML config with hot-reload
  • exec-and-forget scripting

About

WinMux extends AeroSpace with a workspace sidebar, browser-like tab groups, and an intent-zone tiling overlay. Managed Tiling Mode offers 6 hover-hint zones for splits and grouping; Unmanaged Mode provides corner snapping. Configured via TOML with hot-reload.

Who It's For

WinMux is for AeroSpace users — or those already comfortable with i3-style keyboard-driven tiling — who want a richer visual layer on top of their workflow. If you can edit a TOML file and want workspace visibility through a draggable sidebar and browser-like tab groups for window grouping, WinMux layers those features directly onto AeroSpace's model. Note that WinMux is early-stage software (v0.1.3) and not yet code-signed, requiring a Gatekeeper bypass to run.

How It Works

Built directly on AeroSpace, WinMux extends i3-style tiling with three main additions: a sidebar, tab groups, and an intent-zone overlay. The sidebar is described as "a more interactively-performant and useful alternative to Sketchybar" — it displays workspaces and their windows and supports dragging windows between workspaces. Tab groups let multiple windows share the same screen footprint, "similar to Aerospace accordians or Yabai stacks," with browser-style tabs for switching between grouped windows.

WinMux operates in two modes. Managed Tiling Mode exposes 6 intent zones — left, right, up, and down splits, tab group formation, and window swapping — activated by hovering windows near zone boundaries. Unmanaged Mode provides traditional corner snapping without tiling, while still preserving tab groups and the sidebar. An Exposé view (⌃+i) gives a Mission Control-style overview of all open windows. Configuration lives at ~/.config/winmux/winmux.toml with hot-reload support; a Settings GUI covers basic shortcuts without requiring file editing.

Configuration

# ~/.config/winmux/winmux.toml

[mode.main.binding-tap]
    left-alt = 'exec-and-forget /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --profile-directory="Default"'

[mode.main.binding]
    cmd-h = []
    cmd-d = 'exec-and-forget osascript ~/Documents/scripts/launchTerminalWindow.scpt'

window-tabs.enabled = true
window-tabs.height = 28

[workspace-sidebar]
    enabled = true
    collapsed-width = 44
    width = 240
    menu-bar-reserve-height = 28
    show-status-pills = true

Compared to Alternatives

Compared to AeroSpace (which WinMux is built on), WinMux adds a workspace sidebar, tab groups, and the intent-zone tiling overlay that AeroSpace's config-file-only model doesn't provide. Compared to yabai, WinMux doesn't require any SIP disabling and is built on AeroSpace's i3-style model rather than BSP; yabai stacks are analogous to WinMux's tab groups, but yabai provides deeper programmatic control via its Unix socket API. WinMux is newer and less battle-tested than either alternative.

Requirements

  • macOS version not specified in documentation — check releases page for current compatibility
  • Not code-signed: Gatekeeper bypass required on first launch
  • Open source, MIT license

Getting Started

Download the latest binary from the releases page and move WinMux.app to /Applications. Bypass Gatekeeper:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/WinMux.app/

Config lives at ~/.config/winmux/winmux.toml. Use the Settings GUI for initial shortcut setup, or edit the TOML directly for keybindings, sidebar dimensions, and scripting hooks.

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