When using Thaw and Rectangle is hidden, then Rectangle sees Thaw as active app.

[bric3]

• This is a new bug that hasn't been documented in a closed issue or in the Readme.

Actually, it's not really a software but an interaction issue I think.

macOS version: 26.5.1
Rectangle version: 0.96.0
Logs if applicable (In Rectangle menu, hold option, "View Logging..."):

Thaw: https://github.com/stonerl/Thaw

Description:
Thaw is a menu bar management tool, in particular it allows show or hide items. When the items are hidden, Thaw, will either show

• a popup, if there's not enough room like on macbook laptop with the notch
• show menu bar items in the menu bar, e.g. on an external screen with enough room

The following happens if Rectangle is hidden.

Weirdly when there is not enough room, on the screen with a notch, and there is a popup, the Rectangle menu correctly find the active app.

Screen.Recording.2026-07-03.at.10.17.51.mov

However when there's enough room the menu items are show "inline" but then Rectangle is showing Thaw as the active app.

And as such any actions apply to Thaw, not the application that was active before.

THis might well be a Thaw issue, but I'd rather mention the issue here as well for visibility.

[rxhanson]

Thanks for reporting. Indeed this would be on the Thaw team to fix, as it is deemed by macOS as being frontmost when Rectangle's menu is opened.

[diazdesandi]

I don't think we ever got a report about this, is this issue still going on?

[bric3]

@diazdesandi It was the holiday period for me, and since then I moved to latest Thaw stable version, and it doesn't appear to happen anymore 🎉

I noticed that

1. when clicked from the window, then rectangle gets moved in the actual menu bar, and shows the actual focused app.

   

2. Or from the menubar when there's enough room (I toggle on the Always show hidden items on external screens)