Rectangle Keyboard Shortcuts: The Complete Cheat Sheet
Rectangle app ships more window actions than it assigns default shortcuts to. This is the full list — what's bound out of the box, what exists but needs manual assignment, and how the pattern behind the defaults makes the unbound ones easy to guess and rebind yourself.
Shortcuts with a default binding
| Action | Default shortcut |
|---|---|
| Left half | ⌃⌥← |
| Right half | ⌃⌥→ |
| Top half | ⌃⌥↑ |
| Bottom half | ⌃⌥↓ |
| Maximize | ⌃⌥↩ |
| Center | ⌃⌥C |
| Top-left quarter | ⌃⌥U |
| Top-right quarter | ⌃⌥I |
| Bottom-left quarter | ⌃⌥J |
| Bottom-right quarter | ⌃⌥K |
| First third | ⌃⌥D |
| Center third | ⌃⌥F |
| Last third | ⌃⌥G |
| First two-thirds | ⌃⌥E |
| Last two-thirds | ⌃⌥T |
| Make larger | ⌃⌥= |
| Make smaller | ⌃⌥- |
| Next display | ⌃⌥⌘→ |
| Previous display | ⌃⌥⌘← |
| Restore | ⌃⌥⌫ |
The pattern: every default is Control + Option plus a directional arrow, a mnemonic letter (Center, Upper-left, and so on), or a math symbol for resizing. Once you know the pattern, guessing an unfamiliar one is usually faster than checking a reference.
A repeat-press behavior worth knowing
Pressing First Third (⌃⌥D) again on the same window cycles it forward to center-third, then last-third, and back to first-third if pressed again. This means the three third-shortcuts (D, F, G) are really one cycle you can also enter from any point, not three independent commands you have to remember separately.
Actions available, but without a default shortcut
These exist in Rectangle mac and can be bound to any key combination you choose, under the fuller action list reachable via the ellipsis button in preferences:
Fourths: first-fourth, second-fourth, third-fourth, last-fourth, first-three-fourths, last-three-fourths
Sixths: top-left-sixth, top-center-sixth, top-right-sixth, bottom-left-sixth, bottom-center-sixth, bottom-right-sixth
Corner thirds: top-left-third, top-right-third, bottom-left-third, bottom-right-third
Eighths: top-left-eighth, top-center-left-eighth, top-center-right-eighth, top-right-eighth, bottom-left-eighth, bottom-center-left-eighth, bottom-center-right-eighth, bottom-right-eighth
Ninths: top-left-ninth, top-center-ninth, top-right-ninth, middle-left-ninth, middle-center-ninth, middle-right-ninth, bottom-left-ninth, bottom-center-ninth, bottom-right-ninth
Other whole-window actions: almost-maximize, maximize-height
Movement without resizing: move-left, move-right, move-up, move-down
Multi-window: tile-all, cascade-all, reverse-all
Rectangle app's own README is explicit that this full list can change between versions — treat it as a snapshot, and check the project's README if a specific action name you expect isn't showing up in your version.
Assigning a shortcut to an unbound action
- Open Rectangle app's preferences from the menu bar icon.
- Click the ellipsis (…) at the bottom of the shortcuts list to reveal the full action catalog beyond the defaults.
- Click into the shortcut field next to the action you want and press your desired key combination.
- If the combination is already claimed by another app or by macOS itself, Rectangle app will generally still accept it, but it may not fire reliably — test it once before relying on it.
Choosing shortcuts that won't collide
Since every default uses Control + Option, sticking to that same modifier pair for any custom shortcut keeps things consistent and reduces the odds of colliding with an app that uses a more common modifier combination like Command + Option or Command + Shift. If a specific app's own shortcuts do collide with one of Rectangle's, the fix isn't necessarily to change every Rectangle shortcut — Rectangle's Ignore app feature (from the menu, while that app is frontmost) unregisters Rectangle's shortcuts only for that app, leaving them intact everywhere else.
Switching to Spectacle-compatible shortcuts
If you're migrating from the discontinued Spectacle app and already have that muscle memory, Rectangle includes a toggle — offered at first launch, or changeable later in Settings — that switches every default binding above to match Spectacle's original key combinations instead. This replaces the whole table above at once; it isn't something you apply action by action.
The one shortcut worth memorizing before any other
If you only learn one binding beyond halves, make it Restore (⌃⌥⌫). It returns the active window to exactly the size and position it had before Rectangle's last action on it, which makes experimenting with the rest of this list low-risk — any shortcut you try can be undone with the same single combination.