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Why It Is Difficult To Resize Windows on MacOS 26 (daringfireball.net) 95

Posted by msmash from the out-of-the-box-thinking dept.
The dramatically larger corner radius Apple introduced in macOS 26 Tahoe has pushed the invisible resize hit target for windows mostly outside the window itself -- roughly 75% of the 19Ã--19 pixel clickable area now lies beyond the visible boundary. In previous macOS versions, about 62% of that resize target would fall inside the window corner.

Apple removed the visible resize grippy-strip from window corners in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in July 2011. The visual indicator had served two purposes: showing users where to click and signaling whether a window could be resized at all. Users since then have relied on muscle memory and the reasonable assumption that clicking near the inside corner would initiate a resize. DaringFireball's John Gruber advice: don't upgrade to macOS 26, or downgrade if you already have. he wrote Monday: "Why suffer willingly with a user interface that presents you with absurdities like window resizing affordances that are 75 percent outside the window?"
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Why It Is Difficult To Resize Windows on MacOS 26

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  • Baloney (Score:5, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:31PM (#65918356)

    I've been on 26 for a while.. (months, when did it come out?) And I didn't even know this was a thing. And yes I do resize windows a lot, and would definitely notice some annoying shit like that.

    • I'm on 26.3 right now (developer beta) and I have used each iteration of 26 Tahoe along the way. I've had no problem resizing windows.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by leptons ( 891340 )
        I just tried it, and while the window can be resized, it's still a bit janky. The resize cursor shows when hovering over empty space where the curve around the window leaves empty space. It's kind of ridiculous, but it's been similar in previous releases of MacOS. The only thing that really changed was the curve got larger making the empty space larger. It's still really bad UX.

        • Janky how? First off, I hardly even noticed that I was dragging in empty space when I resize a window in MacOS 26. I think I did realize it once or twice before, but not as a big deal. Muscle memory directed me to the corner of the windows and I drag it. Maybe in my brain the window is still "square" except that corner is transparent. I'm struggling to see what the problem is. You can still resize windows. If you want to argue nerd-level UX/UI technicalities: if they made it such that you could click within

          • It's janky in that the window radius is Fisher Price level ridiculous. But other than that, this is a non-story I'm surprised to see on /.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by leptons ( 891340 )
              Kind of funny you say that - I've always called MacOS and System 1 through 9 before it a "Fisher Price Operating System". So much about it is just so bad.

          • It's yet another example of a first world problem.

            Move the cursor until it changes. Click, resize, release.

            Same as it ever was.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by spitzak ( 4019 )

        I agree, the cursor changing is plenty of indication that resizing is going to work. I've relied on that for a long time, on multiple operating systems. Removing button-like edges that once were used to indicate resize borders and corners is a good thing.

  • But it sure sort of maybe but not really looks better that way.

    - Fluff over function.

  • Not even the worst part ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BenBoy ( 615230 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:36PM (#65918384)

    Apple removed the visible resize grippy-strip from window corners in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in July 2011.

    What chaps me is the mouse cursor, which does not change, not one iota, over about 90% of that grippable area. If we got a 'resize' cursor image over the territory that could be grabbed, all of this would be a non-issue. Instead, the cursor flips over 1/n the width of the human hair, with n=the number of people bloody sick of interface changes for no damned reason.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spitzak ( 4019 )

      That's not what I am seeing. The cursor changes in exactly the same area where grabbing it will resize.

      However: the cursor does not change when pointing at windows belonging to other than the active application, even though clicking does resize them. This IMHO is a bug they should fix.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BenBoy ( 615230 )

        That's not what I am seeing.

        Funny, I'm seeing that a lot in the comments; I'm on 26.1; perhaps a fix awaits in 26.2 :-)

        I find the behavior inconsistent on 26.1. With the window *definitely* in focus, I still can move the cursor from outside the window slowly through the corner into the window with no change. The misbehavior seems more consistent outside->in rather than vv.

        I mostly did user interface work prior to retirement ... weird behavior is par for the course!

  • That shows another problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by allo ( 1728082 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:37PM (#65918390)

    Why doesn't the cursor change when it is on the point where one can resize the window?

    I understand why electron apps reinventing the wheel fuckup basic UI guidelines (and for example forget triangle filters so menus become almost unusable), but how can a native UI on macOS fail to change the cursor when it is at the point for resizing the window?

    • Re:That shows another problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Altus ( 1034 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:58PM (#65918468) Homepage

      Im on an MacOS 26 machine now and it definitely does, if the cursor hasn't changed I can't resize the window and when it does change I can. I have a reasonable space both inside and outside the window to resize.

      Sure the grippy thing is gone but it doesn't seem any harder to resize a window and I certainly get visual feedback

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by allo ( 1728082 )

        The video in the blog article looks otherwise. Or doesn't the screen recorder show the cursor changes?

    • Re:That shows another problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @02:00PM (#65918476)

      "Why doesn't the cursor change when it is on the point where one can resize the window?"

      It does change on my 26.2 Macs. It changes from the usual pointer to what appears to be two diagonal arrows. And it does this for approx. 1/4 in square in the bottom right on my MB Pro 14 in. screen, M3.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by spitzak ( 4019 )

        It looks like it does not change when pointing at inactive windows, even though you can resize them. Pretty bad behavior imho.

  • This is clearly stupid, but I'd much rather have this than the majority of popular Linux desktops, where the resize target is 1 friggin' pixel wide, which is sub-millimeter mouse precision with any halfway-decent resolution.

    • Re:I dislike OSX but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bahbus ( 1180627 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:53PM (#65918456) Homepage

      I don't know what you're considering popular, because in my testing of "popular" Linux distros with various desktop environments I have never had something like this. GNOME and KDE, the two most popular environments regardless of distro, both have plentifully large zones for resizing.

      • Yes, large ZONES. However the resize TARGET is often very small. On Ubuntu Mate it's 2 pixels on my desktop (which is scaled 200% so the default is probably 1 pixel). The target is the UI element you aim your mouse at. That's the visible window border. The resize zone only extends PAST that target and very annoyingly not before it. If I look closely there's a shadow along the edge of the window (not visible with darker windows/wallpaper behind it) and that entire shadow is the resize zone.

        But it's sti

        • In my experience, this is one of the biggest barriers to converting people to Linux!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

          On every DE I can think of, including Ubuntu's awful Mate, you can change the thickness of the window borders system-wide. So most of your points are moot.

          which due to UI lag isn't always trustworthy

          If your UI is lagging, then either your hardware isn't good enough to be running it or the UI is garbage - which has nothing to do with the functionality or design of the window resizing.

          If they want to keep this outside-the-window zone, then they need updated mouse pointers.

          If you think the defaults need updated, then update them. There are plenty of other options. The default cursors that look like arrows pointing in opposite directions is

          • There is no pre-installed GUI to change border thickness. The pointer sets are linked to your overall theme and you can't select, view, nor change individual parts of the sets. Windows 95 let you change all of that and far more from only two, easy to use GUI windows. Modern Linux GUIs seem to require you to learn a custom, HTML based theming language and edit those files raw.

            Oh, and after I finished looking at those settings on my laptop I got a crash report: "marco crashed with SIGSEGV in meta_display_s

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              There is no pre-installed GUI to change border thickness.

              Maybe on Ubuntu Mate. Which is a garbage distro and a garbage DE. I have a dropdown with 10 different options for how thick to make the borders with KDE.

              The pointer sets are linked to your overall theme

              Another limitation showing off how shitty Ubuntu Mate is, because almost everyone else can change them separate from the theme.

              Oh, and after I finished looking at those settings on my laptop I got a crash report: "marco crashed with SIGSEGV in meta_display_set_cursor_theme()"

              A Mate specific crash because Mate is garbage.

              The UI lag was referring to older computers.

              It doesn't matter. Same rules apply. You either find something that runs on the hardware smoothly the way you want or you upgrade the hardware. If you can't do either, than you accept th

  • I disabled window decorations for flux/openbox on Linux years ago because using a key and mouse was more effective and made my desktop completely distraction free, as well as eliminated the space waste of the title bar.
    I no longer have to aim every time for that thin line on which I have to click and hold.

    • How is a line, that keeps the text of one window from looking like it runs into another window, distracting?

      • text of one window from looking like it runs into another

        Not an existing problem.
        And different things affect different people. Might want to think about that. :-p

  • Linux has this solved long time ago (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dremon ( 735466 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:47PM (#65918420)
    On KDE Plasma desktop use "Super" (or "Win") key and right mouse button to resize the window no matter where mouse cursor is as long as it is inside the window. And window borders can be customized with thickness. And the resize handle can be toggled on or off. And the roundness of corners can be turned off. Don't thank me.

    • Also works on any decent WM.

      • Of which Linux has quite a few, alongside some dysfunctional ones, but I'm not so sure about MacOS; on Windows, use KDE-mover-sizer to get the right behaviour, it will (usually?) even let you move unfocused windows, something that is not normally possible on Windows.

    • This is amazing! Why did no one tell me sooner?

      But, there is a variation in which direction you can adjust(horizontal, vertical, diagonal) depending on where in the window you click. That will take some getting used to. But otherwise, AMAZING!

  • Microsoft created the "flat" look by cutting off the first few pixels horizontally from the Window. This is why if you move the mouse to the left border of a window, the hit area (when the cursor is shown) begins a few pixels to the left. And it terminates exactly on the border. Drives me mad.

  • I've never had any issue (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:59PM (#65918470) Homepage

    I move the mouse to the corner, it changes shape, and I click and drag. Done.

    I've never even noticed that this happens outside the window.

    Scroll bars -- well they are a while other story.

    But I don't see any issue with resizing.

    I'm going to call this a PEBCAK issue in the author.

    • Yeah, this story dumb, the mouse changes to double arrows clearly indicating when you can re-size. Everyone needs to be spoon fed any changes in their life.

    • Scroll bars -- well they are a while other story.

      It's possible I'm missing what you're referring to here, since I always stay 1-2 major versions behind on macOS. But, assuming it's the "hide/show scroll bars automatically" mal-feature... at least you can disable that (and I always do).

  • I wasn't aware you could click on the inside until I tried it just now. I never thought about it too hard but always thought of it as grabbing the outside edge and stretching the window like a sheet of rubber or something.
     
    My guess is they looked at user data and the vast majority of users do this as well?

  • Quit hiding functionality (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @02:13PM (#65918520)

    I don't need more window space if I can't use the product. Not only is this happening with OS's but it's happening with browsers and webpages with scroll bars. I'd rather be able to find the scroll bar than save 4-12 pixels worth of screen space, which is usually 1/2 to 1/4 the size of a font in the app. Is it worth it? No. The problem is OS's are mature and the UI people still need a job, so what do they do? Keep changing things that don't need to be changed.

    • These "UX" people are always trying to justify their employment; to be fair, it's habit as they had to fight to exist in the 1st place. Since UI has been broadened to UX, you'd think they would expand outside of breaking what works already!

      The other problem is the psychologists who pioneered most everything are gone and the kiddies have so little background understanding. Even if you do study and find a slight benefit, the existing userbase's habits undoes those changes... Sure people resist change and you

  • I have a related problem with most the MATE/GNOME 2 desktop themes. The window borders are 1 pixel wide making it exceptionally difficult to resize them. I try to hand-edit the desktop theme to widen them.

  • Seems to have been fixed in 26.2? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ihadafivedigituid ( 8391795 ) on Monday January 12, 2026 @02:32PM (#65918564)
    I just updated to MacOS 26.2 yesterday, and this issue seems to have been fixed. The cursor changes to a nice big diagonal-resize version well inside the rounded corners.

    It was mildly annoying, not something to freak out about (unless one needs outrage clicks). Gruber needs to get a grip.

    26.2 also seems to have fixed the bug that left volume and screen brightness popups on screen until explicitly dismissed. That was super annoying.

  • Pray I do not enhance it any further.

    That said, I've seen the single pixel resize problem on some Linux machiens and some test software I have to run on Windows XP. But it's weird that we created an entire new career of UX Designer and all they ever seem to do is hide things and make things worse.

    "No-one needs to see the scrollbar!"

    "No-one needs to resize a window!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      It's the Garfield effect; it happens to every commercial product eventually.

      First, the designers run out of "low-hanging fruit" that they can harvest to enhance the product... but sales still needs a new version every 6-12 months, or they can't market the product, so the designers are forced to make changes that improve the product only marginally.

      Eventually the designers run out of ways to improve the product even marginally... but sales still needs a new version every 6-12 months, or they can't market the

  • The thing that always, always frustrated me about MacOS was that there was no maximize in the sense of "fill the entire desktop with the window". A fullscreen would DEDICATE the application to the window, so if you just wanted to flip something in the foreground over the fullscreen app, you couldn't. Nor was there any tiling. So a person had to do all the window positioning completely manually and if you wanted it at the edge of the screen you had to manually position it there.

    • The thing that always, always frustrated me about MacOS was that there was no maximize in the sense of "fill the entire desktop with the window".

      Double-clicking on the title bar of the application doesn't do what you want?

      • Dont know, don't currently have.a working mac. It would be a bit silly if double clicking the title bar did it but there was no window button for it.
  • Apple of course has their own idiosyncratic way of getting there, but I'm finding the comparison between modern MacOS and roughly 1995-era XWindows a much closer thing than I used to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kriston ( 7886 )

      Yeah, tell me about it. MATE/GNOME 2 desktop themes still have a 1-pixel window border.

  • I wouldnâ(TM)t miss this feature if it was gone one day. Iâ(TM)d probably not even notice. In my 25 years of using computers, I have never found a good reason to keep windows smaller than full screen/maximized. Maybe on a very big external monitor, which I have never had. Iâ(TM)ve used 4K 32â ones and still did not find them large enough to fit 2 windows at same time. I always found it easier and faster to just ALT TAB instead of moving my pointer a very long distance. Also, when I reall

  • I use Hammerspoon and a custom ini file to resize and reposition my windows using keyboard shortcuts. That is especially useful on a larger monitor like the 49" Samsung Odyssey G9.

    I often place partition the screen vertically: one window in the left quarter, one in the right quarter, and the main window in the center half of the screen, all with a few quick keyboard shortcuts.

  • So I already upgraded to Tahoe and I'm resizing just fine like I've always been doing in previous releases... what's the problem guys?
  • I use OSX, dislike it's screen controls.
  • Is it just me , this is something I didnâ(TM)t notice and has not caused me any problems. Able to resize the same as before - and it wasnâ(TM)t really that easy before either.

  • With the OS/2 Workplace Shell. It's been downhill ever since. I would pay good money to have this shell on a modern OS, with anti aliased fonts usable on LCD monitors.

  • The resize windows functions perfectly on Tahoe 26.2. When the curser is near the rounded corners it changes to two opposing arrows orthogonal to that corner, that lets you know you can resize the window. It never worked when the window side or corner was dragged off-screen.

  • ... Noticeable in macOS Ventura. :(

  • All the HCI research in the 70s and 80s done by companies like IBM and Microsoft made huge advances in computer usability.

    Now usability has been cast off to a bunch of art school dropouts who don't know anything, and our software suffers immensely because of it.

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