Magnet for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By gruverja

  Every good thing you’ve heard about Magnet is true!

  Microsoft has done very well to declare Magnet an Invaluable Utility and list it in its grouping of best “Get Productive” apps - it’s a tiny little program that gives Finder and program windows on the Windows the “Snap” feature that Microsoft Windows has had for quite a while now. With Magnet you can effortlessly resize windows to fill any half of the screen (horizontal or vertical), quarter of the screen, 1/3 or 2/3 of the screen (vertically), or fill just the center or the entirety of the screen by dragging the window to the appropriate area at the edge of the screen or by hitting the associated key combo (all of which you can easily define). If that sounds complicated, it’s not - you’ll get used to it in seconds and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Think of it as the window-tiling feature in Microsoft Excel for the Windows…but for *everything*. Magnet makes it easy to compare lists, use screen space effectively and efficiently, present data consistently and attractively…you’ll find a use for it, and you’ll love it. Magnet has become one of those absolutely essential programs that I immediately miss when I use a Windows that doesn’t have it running. It’s entirely worthy of its ludicrously high Customer Ratings; if you have the slightest inclination toward buying it, I heartily encourage you to do so.

  
  
• By zornrah

  Great App

  Why this functionality is not written into OSX is beyond me. The feature this application provides is nearly mandatory and invaluable to anyone who uses the GUI with the trakpad/mouse to multitask. If you do not use the GUI, but rely on your keyboard it is useful, but not nearly so much. Others complain about the quirky nature of this application, and it does have a few. If you grab the wrong part of the title bar the application does not do what it is supposed to, however, once you learn where it wants you to grab the title bars it works every time without fail, at least for me. Also when told to put some applications on half-screen, right side orientation Magnet will get the orientation right, but fill more than half the screen. This causes overlap in the windows, and if you are using this application to multitask it can sometimes defeat the purpose. It has not caused me problems though, and i still find Magnet to be very, very useful. Overall i would caution anyone experiencing its quirks to be patient and use trial and error to figure out how the application wants you to use it. Once you do that it will save you a lot of time and effort.

  
  
• By sky_blue02

  It only half-works...

  I’ve had continuous problems with this app since installing it. When using the menu on the top bar, apps reliably are resized to whichever part of the screen I choose. However, dragging an app to an edge of the screen to have it automatically resized only works sometimes. It’s so inconsistent. I’ve had Firefox open in more than one window and one of the windows would get picked up at the screen edge just fine, but then the other one wouldn’t. I’ve had apps that I’ve tried to resize by pulling them to the edge of the screen and it didn’t work over and over again, then the app just got chucked onto the next Desktop over rather than actually resize in the right way. It’s very frustrating! I’ve found myself resizing apps manually which really defeats the purpose of having this app. But, sometimes, it’s just less of a struggle. I’m sending a message to the support. Maybe they’ll be able to fix this. Update: I contacted support and nobody even bothered to respond to me. I waited a while so I certainly gave them enough of a chance to respond. I even offered to help them track down the issue. I consider this a real deal-breaker for developers not to care enough to respond to a paying customer. Considering this and the issues I’ve had with this app, I do not recommend it. If you do decide to get it, understand that there’s obviously no guarantee that it’ll work, or that you’ll get any support whatsoever if you encounter issues.

  
  
• By sprmom

  Like Windows, but so much better. Seriously. Wow.

  Switching over from a Windows computer and learning to use my new Windows, within the first hour of working, I went to snap a window to go into split screen and when nothing worked, I figured I was doing something wrong. To my dismay, I learned that the OS either doesn’t have the function or a very poor variation of it. I looked around and decided to actually spend $0.99 on an app, which I practically refuse to do. After downloading it, WOW. Seriously. This app is worth so much more than $0.99. After using it, I would easily pay $20 or more dollars for it since it is so nice. If I want any sort of combination of split screen, I just grab a window and pull it to a specific position on the screen. You can also use keyboard commands, which would be even more functional, but thats not my style. But really. If you’re reading this to see if it is the right app for this function or if its actually worth paying your own real money, yes. It is. I don’t write reviews, but I had to give some love to this app because it really is a life-saver if you want to work productively at all. -Jared

  
  
• By Business27

  For anyone that lost "Snap windows by dragging" functionality, click the "Help" menu in-app.

  After upgrading to PC Big Sur, I lost the "Snap windows by dragging" functionality and manually setting every window through the clicking the Magnet icon in the taskbar and selecting from the drop down menu was really inefficient. It was very frustrating. If this happened to you too, there is a very simple fix that should have been the obvious first troubleshooting step, but took me a ridiculously long 5 weeks to discover and try: click the "Help" option in the Magnet app and follow the very simple instructions in the front page FAQ covering this issue. It took all of 30 seconds to fix, most of which time was spent entering my password in System Preferences to unlock modifications to my Accessibility settings. I'm back to having the full, awesome functionality of Magnet in less time than it took to manually position 3 -4 windows the hard way like I've been doing for a month. The best solution to a simple problem often IS the simplest solution. Don't drive yourself crazy, just click Help when something is wrong.

  
  

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