Ultrawide monitor guide
An ultrawide monitor gives you room for three or four windows side by side, which is exactly why losing the layout hurts. After the Mac sleeps, after you undock, or after the monitor drops its signal, windows can end up stacked on the laptop screen or resized into a corner, and the careful columns you set up are gone.
Short version: SnapState does not tile or snap windows. You arrange the ultrawide layout yourself, by hand or with a tiling tool you already use, and SnapState saves it and puts it back from the menu bar, a Control-Command shortcut, or automatically on wake or when the monitor reconnects.
When a display disconnects, sleeps deeply, or drops its signal, macOS generally treats it as gone and moves its windows onto a remaining display. Large windows sized for a wide screen are often shrunk or shifted to fit a smaller one. When the ultrawide comes back, macOS re-detects it but does not reliably send each window back to its earlier position and size. If this happens mostly after sleep, see windows moving to one screen after sleep.
SnapState is a native macOS menu bar app. It works alongside whatever you use to arrange windows: tile with macOS or a dedicated window manager, then let SnapState remember the result. If you want a full tiling and snapping tool with saved layouts as one feature, read Moom vs SnapState; many people can reasonably use both. With more than one monitor next to the ultrawide, you can also restore the whole desk with one shortcut.
SnapState costs $9.99 as a one-time purchase, with a lifetime license for up to three Macs and a 14-day refund. Version 2.5.2 requires macOS 15.7 or later on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs and ships as a signed, notarized DMG rather than through the Mac App Store. It needs Accessibility permission to move windows, and workspace data stays local on your Mac as JSON in ~/Library/Application Support/SnapState/.
SnapState is not a tiling or snapping window manager and does not create zones on an ultrawide; it recalls an arrangement you already made. It saves only the visible windows on the current desktop, so it does not save or restore macOS Spaces. Firefox is not supported, only the active tab URL per supported browser window is restored, and it requires macOS 15.7 or later.
When the ultrawide sleeps deeply, loses its signal, or is disconnected, macOS generally moves its windows onto another display. When it comes back, macOS re-detects it but does not reliably return each window to its earlier position and size, so a carefully arranged ultrawide layout often has to be rebuilt.
No. SnapState is not a tiling or snapping window manager. You arrange the ultrawide layout yourself, by hand, with macOS built-in window tiling, or with a tiling tool you already use, and SnapState saves that arrangement and recalls it later.
Yes. macOS 15 added built-in window tiling: you can drag a window to a screen edge or use Window > Move & Resize in supported apps to place it. That arranges windows, but it does not save a named layout for later.
Arrange the windows, then save them as a SnapState workspace from the menu bar. Restore it from the menu bar, with a Control-Command-1 to 6 shortcut, or automatically on wake, monitor connect, or a matching display layout. Stay by Cordless Dog is a free option that restores window positions per display setup automatically.
It does not tile, snap, or create zones. It restores only the visible windows on the current desktop, does not save or restore macOS Spaces, does not support Firefox, restores only the active tab URL per supported browser window, and requires macOS 15.7 or later.