how do I disable automatic window resizing in Sequoia

My brand new iMac came with Sequoia 15.3, and the automatic resizing has been driving me nuts. I would have returned the machine to the Apple Store, if I hadn't already let them recycle my 14 year old Mac. Thanks to this string, I was finally able to stop it by turning off the Tile by Dragging Windows to Screen Edges. How can this be the default setting???

Why does disabling the tiling options work for some but not others? I have Sequoia 18.3.2 and Safari 18.3.1. I have restarted and shut down my computer entirely and my documents still automatically fill the entire screen.

Thank you for the solutions. This unwanted change was driving me crazy. I don't know how much productivity I lost do this supposed "convenience." Everyone in the meeting where they dreamed up that stupidity should be demoted.

I came here to say that this is the absolutely dumbest feature and whoever designed it and convinced Apple to implement it should not be in charge of UI features... It's so bad and unintuitive and not something anyone would ever want to do. Drove me crazy until I finally googled to discover that it could be turned off. Thank you Dialabrain!

Motti.Sh wrote:

Not so. Nobody complains that they "do not like" the new "feature", but rather that it interferes with their work,

I didn’t state that. I responded to the statement that nobody wants automatic window tiling. That has been requested many times by users here over the last decade at least. People did ask for the feature.

When it appeared, I just went into Settings and turned it off. I still enable the Option key capability.

I don’t understand why people don’t know how to use the basic features of macOS.

This worked for me thanks to GPT

Turn off Window Snapping (macOS Sonoma & Ventura)

1. Go to  Apple menu → System Settings.
2. Select Desktop & Dock in the left sidebar.
3. Scroll down to the Windows section.
4. Toggle “Displays have separate Spaces” and “Stage Manager” if you don’t want them, but the key setting is:

• Uncheck “Tiling & snapping” (or disable “When dragging windows, enable snapping” depending on your version).

This stops windows from auto-resizing when you drag them to screen edges.

if you're running any form of 3rd party window tiling SW - e.g. Dell's DDPM utility that they distribute with their monitors - try uninstalling that and see what happens. That was the problem for a couple of us. Don't know if other tiling utilities might suffer from the same fate.

Good luck!

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CesareMedici

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Sep 28, 2024 11:50 AM in response to d.s.cobb

Thanks for confirming, @d.s.cobb! That's exactly the faulty behavior I had reported via Apple Feedback.

Here, it's a Mac Mini M2 Pro with a Dell UltraSharp 40" monitor (U4021QW). And that turned out to be the problem.

As suggested by Dell, I had installed Dell's DDPM software, and allowed it to open automatically on startup. That software has a feature called EasyArrange which allows, among other things, window tiling just like in Sequoia. I've never used it, though, and wasn't aware it was seemingly turned on (maybe it wasn't). For more than a year, it hasn't caused any issues.

Now that changed when updating to Sequoia. Don't ask me how this is possible, but the new macOS window tiling feature seems to have enabled the DDPM EasyArrange feature, with no way of disabling it.

From there on, fixing the issue was easy: Quit DDPM, and the nasty behavior immediately goes away. Go to Settings, Login Items & Extensions, Open at Login, and remove DDPM, so that it doesn't load on startup. Problem solved. This also explains why most people in this thread didn't encounter the problem the way I did.

Jo!, try this App...

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12

System Settings > Desktop & Dock > turn off "Drag windows to menu bar to fill screen"

Looks like this has changed a little.

It is now under System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Windows "Drag windows to menu bar to fill screen"

PatriceW999 wrote:

I'm looking at a variety of settings - which one will make the automatic sizing to full screen when I drag a window to the top of the screen?

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/37a0e05e-9f43-4638-aff7-c8f32623f7b2

Tile by dragging windows to screen edges.

You can just choose to not use the suggestion. When the outline appears indicating which tile it is going to drop into, just move the window a little and the Tile will go away.

GAWD, that's an annoying default setting! Geez!

I must have a different version than everyone else. I just move the window slightly and the tile outline goes away and I can place the window anywhere. Does it not work like that for you?

Apple always defaults new toys to On.

None of the suggestions resolved this issue for me. I am using two monitors - one laptop display and one 30" display. Windows move and stack (and don't tile) fine on the laptop display. However, any window that's dragged to the larger display causes two transparent boxes appear delineating the left and right halves of the screen - one outlined by yellow and one outlined by green. When I release the mouse over either of these boxes, the window being moved is resized to 1/2 the screen and tiled into that side of the display. I have ALL the tiling options disabled. This behavior started with Sequoia betas and still manifests in the GA release.