macOS Window Tiling Shortcuts

Fix macOS system window tiling shortcuts (Tile Left/Right/Top/Bottom Half) that don't work in Tauri apps due to a muda menu library bug.

The problem

macOS system window tiling shortcuts do not work in Tauri apps. These shortcuts — configured in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Windows (e.g., Tile Left Half, Tile Right Half) — work fine in Electron apps (Obsidian, Discord, Slack) and native macOS apps, but Tauri apps silently ignore them.

On macOS 15+ (Sequoia), the built-in tiling shortcuts are Fn+Control+Arrow. Custom shortcuts configured in System Preferences use different key combos (e.g., ⌃⌘J, ⌃⌘;).

Root cause

macOS injects tiling menu items into whichever NSMenu is registered as the “Windows menu” via [NSApp setWindowsMenu:]. If no menu is registered, the system has nowhere to inject tiling items, so the shortcuts do nothing.

Two things were wrong:

1. muda bug (v0.17.1): The set_as_windows_menu_for_nsapp() method passed an internal template NSMenu to [NSApp setWindowsMenu:] instead of the actual displayed NSMenu. Even if you called it, it registered the wrong menu. This was fixed in muda v0.17.2.

2. Missing call: The app code never called set_as_windows_menu_for_nsapp() on the Window submenu, so macOS never knew which menu was the Window menu.

Why Electron works

Electron explicitly calls [NSApp setWindowsMenu:submenu] when a menu has role == "window", passing the actual displayed NSMenu. This is why tiling “just works” in Electron apps.

The fix

Two steps are required:

Step 1: Update muda to v0.17.2+

cargo update -p muda

Verify the version in Cargo.lock:

[[package]]
name = "muda"
version = "0.17.2"

Step 2: Register the Window menu

Return the Window submenu from your create_menu function and call set_as_windows_menu_for_nsapp() after setting the menu:

// menu.rs
pub fn create_menu(
    app: &tauri::App,
) -> tauri::Result<(Menu<tauri::Wry>, Submenu<tauri::Wry>)> {
    let handle = app.handle();
    let menu = Menu::new(handle)?;

    // ... build App, File, Edit, View menus ...

    // Window menu
    let window_menu = Submenu::new(handle, "Window", true)?;
    window_menu.append(&PredefinedMenuItem::minimize(handle, None)?)?;
    window_menu.append(&PredefinedMenuItem::maximize(handle, None)?)?;
    window_menu.append(&PredefinedMenuItem::separator(handle)?)?;
    #[cfg(target_os = "macos")]
    {
        window_menu.append(
            &PredefinedMenuItem::show_all(handle, None)?,
        )?;
    }
    menu.append(&window_menu)?;

    // Return both the full menu and the Window submenu
    Ok((menu, window_menu))
}

// main.rs — inside setup()
let (menu, window_menu) = native::menu::create_menu(app)?;
app.set_menu(menu)?;

#[cfg(target_os = "macos")]
window_menu.set_as_windows_menu_for_nsapp()?;

native::menu::register_menu_handler(app);

Verifying the fix

After building and installing the app:

1. Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts (or Window Management on Sequoia)
2. Verify tiling shortcuts are enabled
3. Focus the Tauri app window
4. Press a tiling shortcut (e.g., Fn+Control+Left Arrow on Sequoia, or your custom shortcut)
5. The window should snap to the corresponding half/quarter of the screen

Reference

• muda #263 — Original bug report (closed, fixed in v0.17.2)
• muda #335 — Fix PR (merged April 2026)
• Tauri #13605 — Downstream issue report
• muda #262 — Sequoia tiling icons (separate, still open)
• winit #3986 — Same root cause in winit-based apps