Stage Manager 1.5.0

The corner stays clean on any wallpaper with Screen Recording allowed, also over desktop icons and widgets, and through Show Desktop.
The Dock and ⌘-Tab bring the window you want to the front, also in a stage shared with other apps.
Hidden windows come back exactly where you left them, after a quit, a crash or a restart.
A window you minimize with ⌘M keeps its card; a hung app no longer freezes Stage Manager.

Install: download Stage-Manager.dmg, open it and drag Stage Manager into Applications, or brew install eugene-tea/tap/stage-manager. Signed and notarized. Needs macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. Coming from 1.2.0 or later, the app offers this update itself.

Stage Manager 1.4.0

New apps can open in the stage you are in. Turn it on in Settings → Stages; hold Shift to give an app a stage of its own.
A strip that stays put: stages keep their places, or follow your Dock's order.
Settings has panes: General, Stage Manager, Stages, Windows and Advanced.
Going to another Desktop no longer pulls you back; no window edges in the corner while a Desktop slides in.

Install: download Stage-Manager.dmg, open it and drag Stage Manager into Applications, or brew install eugene-tea/tap/stage-manager. Signed and notarized. Needs macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. Coming from 1.2.0 or 1.3.0, the app offers this update itself.

What's new

• New apps can open in the current stage: turn on Open new apps in the current stage (Settings → Stages) and a newly opened app joins the stage you are in. Hold Shift while opening an app to give it a stage of its own. Off by default, as Apple's.
• Stages can keep their places: set Strip order to Keep in Place (Settings → Stages) and each stage stays in its own place in the strip, whichever card you click.
• Or the strip can follow your Dock: Strip order → Follow the Dock puts the stages in the order their apps sit in the Dock. Rearrange the Dock and the cards follow.
• Settings has a toolbar of panes, as Mac apps' settings do: General, Stage Manager, Stages, Windows and Advanced.
• Going to another Desktop no longer pulls you back to the one you left.
• The edges of hidden windows no longer show in the corner while a Desktop slides in or a switch ends, including on Apple's dynamic wallpapers.
• An app that quits without macOS saying so (Home, which quits with its last window) no longer leaves a gray card behind.
• After a restart, an app macOS did not reopen opens where any new app does when you open it later, instead of going back into an old stage.
• A config file that can't be read no longer turns Settings back to the defaults: the last good config stays.
• An update that cannot put the previous version back no longer removes it: both copies stay, and the note at the next launch says where.

Not affiliated with Apple. MIT licensed.

Stage Manager 1.3.0

Your stages come back after a restart. Stage Manager brings every window back before you log out, restart or shut down, and puts the windows macOS reopens back into their saved stages on each Desktop.
⌘-Tab and Dock clicks grow the app's windows from their card, as Apple's do.
Cards no longer show a gray box around a window with a popup open.
Quieter, cleaner quits; a window closed while its app hangs leaves its stage; window pictures pause while the Mac is locked or asleep.

Install: download Stage-Manager.dmg, open it and drag Stage Manager into Applications, or brew install eugene-tea/tap/stage-manager. Signed and notarized. Needs macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. Coming from 1.2.0, the app offers this update itself.

What's new

• Your stages come back after a restart. When you log out, restart or shut down, Stage Manager brings every window back first, so macOS saves them where they really are. After you log back in (with macOS's "Reopen windows when logging back in" on), the windows macOS reopens go back into their saved stages, on each Desktop. Windows that some apps (VS Code, Slack and other Electron apps) reopen on the wrong Desktop join their saved stage where they appear. Stage Manager does not relaunch apps. Turn it off with [stages] restore_after_restart = false.
• ⌘-Tab and Dock clicks grow the app's windows from their card, as Apple's do; the corner stays clean while they do.
• A card shows a window without a gray box around it when a popup is open.
• Quieter, cleaner quits: hidden tabs and other apps' helper windows no longer count as windows left in the corner, and a leftover safety helper hands its windows to the next copy of Stage Manager instead of waiting.
• A window closed while its app is not responding leaves its stage (no empty gray card).
• Window pictures retry less often after failures and pause while the Mac is locked or asleep, which saves battery.
• The menu bar icon is the same height as Apple's own symbols.

Not affiliated with Apple. MIT licensed.

Stage Manager 1.2.0

Install: download Stage-Manager.dmg, open it and drag Stage Manager into Applications, or brew install eugene-tea/tap/stage-manager. Signed and notarized. Needs macOS 14 or later on an Apple silicon Mac.

What's new

• Automatic updates. Stage Manager downloads a new version from GitHub, checks that it is signed by its developer and notarized by Apple, brings your windows back, replaces itself and relaunches. It asks first ("Install and Relaunch"); Settings can make it install on its own. Coming from 1.1.0 or 1.0.0, download this version by hand once.
• One copy at a time. Launching Stage Manager again opens the running copy's Settings instead of starting a second manager.
• Safer quits and crashes. A crash can no longer leave the app hanging with windows in the corner; a busy app no longer slows switching; the saved stages are never lost to a failed save.
• Privacy. The log no longer records window titles (only a short code), and Stage Manager's files are readable by you only.
• The clean corner stays inert after you type a password.
• Apple silicon Macs only, now said on the page and in Homebrew.

Not affiliated with Apple. MIT licensed.

Stage Manager 1.1.0

Install: download Stage-Manager.dmg, open it and drag Stage Manager into Applications. It is signed and notarized, and needs macOS 14 or later. If you have 1.0.0, it also offers the update itself.

What's new

• Desktops keep their stages across restarts, and when you move windows between Desktops. A window moved to another Desktop goes where a new window of its app would open there.
• ⌘-Tab, Dock and click switches animate again: the stage you leave shrinks into the strip, behind the app you switch to.
• Quitting brings back every window from the corner, even from an app that is busy at that moment. A window that can't be reached yet comes back as soon as it can.
• The strip stays in front, and stays put under the pointer, while you click through its cards with windows covering it.
• The clean corner hides during Show Desktop, and comes back with the windows after Mission Control.
• New documentation: a short user guide, a configuration reference and development notes.

Not affiliated with Apple. MIT licensed.

Stage Manager 1.0.0

The first release. Stage Manager is a stand-in for Apple's Stage Manager: the strip of stages on the left and your windows floating as you left them. It looks and behaves like Apple's out of the box. Everything beyond that is off until you turn it on in ~/.config/stage-manager/config.toml.

Install: download Stage-Manager.dmg, drag the app into Applications and open it. It is signed and notarized. It needs macOS 14 or later.

On first launch it walks you through:

• turning off Apple's Stage Manager (it offers to do it for you);
• Accessibility (required), so it can move, hide and bring back your windows;
• Screen Recording (optional), for live pictures on the cards. Without it, cards show plain window shapes with the app's icon.

What's in 1.0.0

• Each Desktop gets its own stages and strip. Switches animate the way Apple's do.
• Drag and drop between stages, ⌘M to the strip, reorder cards, and drop a card on another to merge the two stages.
• A Dock click to an app on another Desktop arranges that Desktop before it slides in.
• The corner where parked windows wait is clean: their slivers ignore clicks, and a small patch drawn from your wallpaper's own file covers them. No screen recording is involved.
• A menu bar icon with Settings, About, update checks and launch at login. Rules, named stages, hotkeys, pinning and every look and timing live in the config file. docs/AGENTS.md lets an AI assistant set it up for you.
• If Apple's Stage Manager is turned on, it steps aside and puts every window back.
• No window is left parked, even after a crash: a small watchdog brings windows back.

Privacy: nothing about your windows leaves your Mac. The only network use is a daily update check against GitHub.

Not affiliated with Apple. MIT licensed.