Workflo is a macOS menu-bar app for workspace automation: it opens the apps you need, arranges every window, and clears the rest, on its own, from your calendar, the clock, and display changes.
BetterSnapTool earns its place
For a few dollars, one time, BetterSnapTool (often written Better Snap Tool) covers drag-to-edge snapping, keyboard shortcuts, and custom snap areas you draw yourself, from folivora.ai, the developer behind BetterTouchTool. It has been doing that one job well for over a decade. If your only complaint is that dragging windows is slow, it's a fine answer, and this page isn't for you yet.
The part no snap area fixes
A Mac workday is a context switch every hour: a call, a focus block, docking at the desk, undocking to leave. Every switch costs the same manual minute: reopen, drag, resize, hide. Snap areas make that minute faster. They don't make it stop.
That's the line that matters when you're comparing window managers: BetterSnapTool, like every tool in this category, waits to be asked. Every arrangement starts with you noticing, deciding, and dragging something. The recurring minute is still yours to pay.
What Workflo does instead
Workflo isn't a faster way to arrange windows. It's the end of arranging them as a task.
- The whole workspace, not just the windows. A Scene opens the apps that aren't running, places every window, and clears the rest. BetterSnapTool acts on the windows you already have on screen.
- Before the moment. Scenes apply on their own from your calendar or the clock: the right apps are open, placed, and ready before the call or the focus block starts.
- When displays change. Workflo learns your layout for every display setup (it calls them Desks), so docking and undocking just work: everything snaps back where it belongs, untouched by you.
- When you need an empty screen. One hotkey stashes every window for a screen share; the same hotkey brings it all back.
At a glance
The difference is who initiates, and how much of the workspace is in scope.
| BetterSnapTool | Workflo | |
|---|---|---|
| Windows move | When you drag to an edge or press a shortcut | On their own, from your calendar, the clock, and display changes |
| Apps that aren't open | You launch them yourself | The Scene opens them as it applies |
| Apps in the way | You hide or quit them | The Scene clears them |
| Snapping and snap areas | Excellent, custom areas included; its whole purpose | Not the focus; keep BetterSnapTool for that |
| Displays change | You rearrange | Every layout snaps back by itself |
| Before a meeting | You set up while it starts | The workspace is staged before it starts |
| Price | Paid, inexpensive, one-time | $19.99 one-time, 7-day free trial |
| Data | Local | Local JSON, no account, no cloud, ~4 MB app |
The whole field, honestly
A fair comparison names everyone. Here's the category in one table; every tool in it is good at what it does, and the last column is the only line Workflo draws. (For a longer per-app breakdown, see our guide to the best Mac window managers in 2026.)
The last column is the whole comparison.
| Tool | The model | Price | Starts on its own? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rectangle | Keyboard + drag snapping | Free, open source | No; waits for your shortcut |
| Rectangle Pro | Deeper snapping: custom areas, app layouts | Paid | No; still your keystroke |
| Spectacle | Keyboard snapping (retired 2019) | Free, open source | No, and no longer maintained |
| Magnet | Drag-to-edge snapping | Paid | No |
| BetterSnapTool | Drag + keyboard snapping, custom snap areas | Paid | No |
| Moom | Palette, grids, saved layouts | Paid | Partly; replays a snapshot you saved when displays change |
| Loop | Radial snapping menu | Free, open source | No |
| Amethyst | Automatic tiling | Free, open source | Tiles continuously; no saved layouts, no staging |
| yabai | Scriptable tiling window manager | Free, open source | Only what you script yourself |
| BetterTouchTool | Gestures and snapping (and much more) | Paid | No |
| Divvy | Grid-picker resizing | Paid | No |
| Swish | Trackpad-gesture snapping | Paid | No |
| Raycast windows | Snapping and saved layouts, by command | Free tier | No; runs when you invoke it |
| Stay · Display Maid | Save & restore window positions | Paid | No; you save, you restore |
| Workflo | Workspace automation: Scenes + Desks | $19.99 one-time, 7-day trial | Yes: your calendar, the clock, and display changes |
BetterSnapTool vs BetterTouchTool, quickly
Same developer, different scope. BetterTouchTool includes BetterSnapTool's window snapping and adds gestures, custom triggers, and far more; if you already own BetterTouchTool, you don't need BetterSnapTool. Against Magnet the choice is taste: Magnet is simpler, BetterSnapTool is more configurable. All of them are buttons; none of them start on their own.
Keep BetterSnapTool. Add the part it can't do.
The two don't compete for the same moment. BetterSnapTool answers "put this window there, now." Workflo answers "have my workspace ready before I need it, and put it back when things change." Keep a snapping tool installed for one-off moves if you like; what changes is how rarely you reach for it once the recurring setups run themselves. And if what you're actually after is saving window layouts instead of snapping, that's a different field again, compared in full there.