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windowctl

Move, resize, focus

Terminal window
windowctl move --app "Google Chrome" --monitor 2 --zone 2B
windowctl resize --app "Google Chrome" --w 900 --h 700
windowctl focus --title "jira"
  • move places a window: by zone, by split, or by coordinates.
  • resize keeps the window’s current X/Y and changes only its size.
  • focus raises the window and activates its application.

When the OS clamps the move

Section titled “When the OS clamps the move”

Applications get a say. Chrome refuses widths below roughly 500px; some windows resist leaving the menu-bar inset. windowctl does not pretend that worked — it exits non-zero and reports the bounds the window actually settled at:

windowctl: requested 512x640 at (3840,30), OS clamped to 576x615 at (3840,55)
           (likely a minimum-window-size constraint)

The bounds are read after the window settles, not mid-animation, so the number you get is the number that stuck.

macOS specifics

Section titled “macOS specifics”

Move and focus go through the Accessibility API: position and size are set as a pair (a sandwich, so cross-display moves land correctly), and focus is a raise action plus an application activate. The bridge from a window ID to its Accessibility element is a fresh lookup under the owning process, disambiguated by title and bounds — no caching that can go stale, no private API.

Without permission, these exit with a clear Accessibility permission denied error. See Permissions.