Turn your desktop into a command center. Glance replaces the clutter of overlapping windows with a clean, always-visible layout — your main window front and center, everything else as live thumbnails at your fingertips.
If you regularly juggle 10+ windows, you know the pain: Cmd+Tab / Alt+Tab is slow, Mission Control is a blur of rectangles, and Stage Manager / Snap Layouts never quite get it right.
Glance takes a different approach:
- One focused window lives in a frosted-glass work area — always visible, never buried
- Everything else becomes a live thumbnail arranged around it — no hunting, no guessing
- Switch instantly by clicking a thumbnail, or use keyboard hints to jump to any window with a single keystroke
Think of it as a persistent, keyboard-driven Mission Control that actually stays out of your way.
| macOS | Windows | |
|---|---|---|
| Live Thumbnails | CGWindowList capture (3 FPS) | DWM hardware-accelerated (real-time) |
| Keyboard Quick Switch | Option double-tap | Alt double-tap |
| Drag & Drop Reorder | Drag to rearrange | Drag to rearrange |
| Hover Preview | Blue border highlight | Blue border highlight |
| Pin Reference Window | Adjustable split ratio | Adjustable split ratio |
| Spring-Loading | Drag file over thumbnail for 2s | Drag file over thumbnail for 2s |
| Multi-Display | Intelligent distribution | Intelligent distribution |
| Window Parking | Hidden virtual display | Virtual desktop / off-screen |
| Auto-Swap on Focus | - | Alt+Tab auto-swap |
| Private Window Detection | Lock icon placeholder | - |
| System Tray / Menu Bar | Menu bar icon | System tray icon |
| Frosted Glass Work Area | NSVisualEffectView | Windows 11 Mica/Acrylic |
| Action | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| Toggle Glance on/off | Ctrl + Option + H |
Ctrl + Alt + H |
| Enter quick-switch hint mode | Option (double-tap) |
Alt (double-tap) |
| Jump to window (in hint mode) | 1-9, A-Z |
1-9, A-Z |
| Exit hint mode | Esc |
Esc |
Grab the latest Glance.pkg from the Releases page and run the installer.
Build from source
Requires XcodeGen and Xcode 16+.
git clone https://github.com/hoveychen/glance.git
cd glance
./build.sh
open build/Build/Products/Release/Glance.appGrab the latest glance-windows.exe from the Releases page and run it. No installation needed.
Build from source
Requires Rust stable toolchain.
git clone https://github.com/hoveychen/glance.git
cd glance/glance-windows
cargo build --release
# Binary at target/release/glance-windows.exeOn first launch, macOS will ask for two permissions:
- Accessibility — needed to move and resize windows. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility and enable Glance.
- Screen Recording — needed to capture live window thumbnails. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording and enable Glance.
Glance runs as a menu bar app (no Dock icon). Click the status bar icon to toggle it on or off.
No special permissions required. Glance runs in the system tray — left-click to toggle, right-click for options.
For the best visual experience, Windows 11 is recommended (Mica/Acrylic backdrop). On Windows 10, Glance works fully but the work area window uses a solid dark background instead.
Glance parks your non-focused windows out of sight — on macOS via a hidden virtual display, on Windows via a secondary virtual desktop (or off-screen coordinates as fallback). The parked windows remain fully alive and functional. Their contents are rendered as live thumbnails around your work area.
When you click or keyboard-select a thumbnail, the parked window swaps back and the previously active window takes its place. The result: one window in focus, everything else a glance away, zero overlap.
macOS: 14.0 (Sonoma) or later, Accessibility + Screen Recording permissions
Windows: Windows 10 (1809+) or later, no special permissions
MIT