flash

Flash and yabai

yabai is “Tiling window management for the Mac”, “designed to work as an extension to the built-in window manager of macOS”: binary space partitioning, native Spaces, signals, and an optional scripting addition injected into Dock.app that needs SIP partially disabled. It is MIT C, about 30,000 stars, v7.1.25 in May 2026, with keyboard shortcuts delegated to skhd. Flash does not tile and runs next to it.

	yabai	Flash
License, price	MIT, free	MIT, free
Platforms	macOS 11+ (Intel), 12+ (Apple Silicon), up to 26	macOS 14+
Permissions	Accessibility; Screen Recording for animations; SIP partially disabled and passwordless sudo for the scripting addition	Accessibility; no SIP change
Windows	bsp, stack and float layouts over native Spaces; space control, opacity and animations with the scripting addition	Named positions, proportional frames, placement rules, directional focus, full screen
Hotkeys	None; skhd or another daemon	Built in, per mode and per app
Hints, bar	None; signals for bars	Hints in every app, bar, widgets, popups
Configuration	~/.yabairc shell script	TOML, live reload
Maintenance	v7.1.25, May 2026	1.0.0, October 2026

Where yabai is stronger

• Native Spaces and full screen work with it, which no other tiler manages.
• A complete window model: bsp, stacking, floating rules, animations, opacity, signals.
• Runs on older macOS versions.

Where Flash is stronger

• No SIP change, no sudo, no scripting addition. Flash is installable on a managed work machine where yabai is not.
• Hotkeys are built in, with modes and per-app tables, so no skhd.
• Hints, search, bar, widgets, popups, plugins.

Flash features you might like

• NORMAL mode as the keyboard layer skhd would provide, with the mode shown in the bar.
• window_focus --direction= for focus moves that do not depend on the tiling tree.
• A bar source running yabai -m query --spaces --space for the current space.

Using both

[mode.all.mappings]
"cmd+shift+space" = ["flash", "mouse_target"]

[statusbar.sources.space]
command = ["sh", "-c", "yabai -m query --spaces --space | jq .index"]

Leave window placement to yabai; Flash’s window_move on a tiled window will be undone by the tiler.

Checked 2026-10-14 against the yabai README and wiki.

This site is open source. Improve this page.