Alan.app – Add a Border to macOS Active Window
14 comments
·November 26, 2025who-shot-jr
phantasmish
Oh damn, this has been causing me trouble when working in half-and-half and quartered windows as recently as this week. I’ll be installing the one you linked, or the one the thread-link points to. Thanks, didn’t occur to me this would be a thing but of course it is.
Atreiden
Always glad to see more software in the window management space, especially for MacOS.
Any reason to use this over JankyBorders? I'm using it alongside Aerospace right now and forget sometimes it isn't built-in. Kind of weird to me that after all this time this is such a sparsely implemented feature. But the combo with Aerospace works well. Only thing missing is support in Aerospace for a toggle to have a window expand to the size of it's container. Really liked that feature in Yabai, made working with multiple tiled terminals really nice
smcleod
This has been a serious problem since macOS Tahoe. Whoever signed off on the UI for Tahoe needs a serious schooling in UI/UX design principles - it's incredibly hostile to users. Not only does it make it impossible to distinguish between overlapping windows as this tool seeks to mitigate, there's many confusing UI elements and lack of contrast not to mention why it has so much padding on everything - you're left with far less usable space.
swyx
i cannot wait for OpenAIPhone and then OpenAIMac to come out and make Apple wake the fuck up
treetalker
A similar app I really like is HazeOver, which is a configurable dimmer for everything on the screen except the front window.
CharlesW
HazeOver is great, even when configured to be very subtle.
evaneykelen
I’m surprised this feature isn’t part of the built-in Accessibility Settings. Neat little app!
throw-the-towel
Somehow it's so cute that the name of the app is, well, a name.
mbreese
In reading more from this guy's blog, he also wrote a game called "Steve".
nreilly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Border Is a pretty famous cricketer.
tailspin2019
Maybe derived from “a line”?
nexton
As an Aussie, I assumed it was a reference to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Border
l5870uoo9y
Am I the only one who can't see what the problem is in that screencast? Click on the window you want to use or tab through until you find the right one.
There is also https://github.com/FelixKratz/JankyBorders
Bizarre that this has not been fixed by Apple, it has been an annoyance well before Tahoe. Relying on the three dots in the top left corner to see which window is on top gets frustrating.