WindowMizer5.2

I LOVE this app. Have been using it a long time. I just downloaded the newest version, but I guess it requires another fee, which I'll do when the trial period is over. I don't know if this version will be compatible with newest system which I haven't downloaded yet but will at some point. I don't want to give up apps I like; this is one of them so I do hope it will be compatible.

I LOVE this app. Have been using it a long time. I just downloaded the newest version, but I guess it requires another fee, which I'll do when the trial period is over. I don't know if this version will be compatible with newest system which I haven't downloaded yet but will at some point. I don't want to give up apps I like; this is one of them so I do hope it will be compatible.

Upgraded to Catalina from Sierra, where WM was working perfectly. Downloaded the trial version of latest WM and can’t get past the preferences security. Even though it’s checked as allowing access, it continues to ask to be allowed access in prefs! Tried restarting. Tried deleting app and reinstalling.... I just want my windows to roll up again.

WindowMizer appears to be stone dead. Since 2016, Chris has been on top of a LOT––and communicative. He's LITERALLY disappeared, and has been so since Jan. 2019. October now. Time for someone to call the cops, seriously. I had his address at one point, but lost it. He needs a welfare check guys–I'm in OR and can't do much from here.

WARNING: The RGB World website has, by all appearances, been HACKED. I've attempted to contact them twice by two different methods and nothing has changed.

1) There is no longer any Help of any kind, apart from the meagre FAQ. All documentation has been removed and replaced with BAD ADS, most specifically for MacKeeper, a very ill omen indeed. (I'll skip the details of why).

2) Their Forum is stagnant. Nothing has been posted there, or rather nothing has been *able* to have been posted there since June! I've tried.

Summary: BEWARE their website. I have no idea if this affects their purchasing system, but it makes me worry that money sent is going to whomever hacked the place.

If the developer is reading this: You have major problems to clean up. Your reputation is on the line.

First off, this app is $24.95 OR $8 per year subscription. Second, the app is still buggy and doesn't operate as clean & easily as the old "Haxie" or the original feature did. For those wondering what's changed in the latest updates: Version 5.0.5 Sun, 16 June 2019 20:08:24 -0500 Fixed issue with Event Tap port. Fixed compatibility with FreeChat and WhatsApp. Fixed compatibility with Adobe After Effects and Premier. Added: Floating window options (global & app-specific). Version 5.0.4 Sun, 09 June 2019 01:37:12 -0500 Hardened runtime for macOS 10.14.5. Notarized by Apple notary service. Rewrite distribution script to auto-notarize. Updated: Japanese localization. Prepare for discontinuation of DevMateKit. Added: Microsoft AppCenter frameworks to start replacement of DevMateKit.

Used to work wonderfully, but cannot "convince" 4.4.2 to run under Mojave 10.14.5: Keeps asking permission to control under privacy (system prefs), even though it's already granted!
No way I'll "upgrade" to 5... when the iteration I've already paid for is non-functional!?

Please hold while I further investigate upgrade discounts available for WindowMizer 5.

How many times am I going to have to keep paying for this? 5, 10, 20? You fixed it so that those of us who did NOT want to update to 5.x.x, and just stay with a previous version, cannot do that. Shame on you!

The RGB Website says that v5 is an $8 paid UPGRADE (essentially a repurchase, as there is no discount for those who have bought previous versions.) This is NOT TRUE. It is now a paid SUBSCRIPTION, which means that they will be after you for another $8 EVERY YEAR.! A single $8 is not unreasonable for a one-trick pony, but every year???? Not gonna happen!

WM 4.4.2 def not working under Mojave (MB Pro) - rolls up windows but unable roll down/restore. WM 5 pricing is lunacy - USD$8/year subscription or USD$25 for standalone licence!!!!!!!! What the ... Previous minor 0.x upgrades were USD$3, and major upgrades were USD$5, so to ask $25 for upgrade WM 4 to WM 5 is beyond a joke. Nothing on RGB web page about discount for upgrades from prev versions and considerations of registered users. Just red text statement that Wm 4 to Wm 5 is a paid upgrade. Nothing in User Forums, search of their page for 'upgrade' fails to return anything, so clearly no interest in looking after their existing customer base... Absolute appalling treatment of loyal customers. No option for existing users to upgrade at discount, so bye bye WM - great product but shocking treatment of your supporters/users.

I liked Window Mizer, it lacks the ability to put windows as tabs to the side of the desktop but works well. Now we are told Window Mizer will release version 5 with new coding system, and will move to a subscription base, as though it was adobe photoshop. There is a standalone price but this does not include major updates. I know I complain about utilities not being developed but this is ridiculous. I think Id rather go without.

I'm using WindowMizer every day and loving it ! But to get back its full potential: When will we see Version 5 for High Sierra as announced by the developer earlier for May? Any beta already?

This is a great way to get space and reduce clutter. Like the old window shade. I would just like to know about High Sierra compatibility?

This type of utility always gets abandoned at the end, and it looks to me like WindowMizer is not an exception. I bought a license, but now I regret since I've already uninstalled it. It turned out to be not so useful/necessary after all, plus some annoyances and bugs. Plus, when you get used to using something like this too much, you feel completely lost when you have to work on another Mac without it. Furthermore, all the milliseconds you think you might be saving is entirely erased almost instantly once you have to troubleshoot for high CPU usage, things not working right, etc. Unlike general stand-alone apps, this type of utility is hard to make it stable and reliable, because it has to handle a huge variety of scenarios system-wide with a bunch of other apps. macOS's default Mission Control works just fine. I used to think it was useful in the past, but I found it rather unnecessary once I learned to use all macOS default features effectively.

Perhaps not ready for Sierra? Installed WindowsMizer 4.4.2 in Sierra. Afterwards, I opened 'Finder Preferences' and as I switched options (General, Tags, Sidebar, Advanced) there was severe flickering of the window as it changed size. That was concerning enough for me to uninstall WM and the problem only then went away after also logging out and back in again.

I was looking for an app to replace the defunct WindowShade from Unsanity and was happy to find this app. But it freezes up when I try to open app windows. I'll click on the app and it just sits there. I quit WindowMizer and things are back to normal. Anyone else having this trouble?

No offense to nice app, but I'm not comfortable messing about in the Terminal or patching my existing client. Can't the developer just fix this with an Update so it works again?

It seems that when there is no window on, like if i close to red button of mail app, to bring it back i have to click TWICE on dock icon of mail... just once when Windowmizer is off :-(

Major probs installing new 4.4 Naturally, the app seeks permission in System Preferences, to access control of Mac through ACCESSIBILITY FEATURE. But it's icon is already there and permission is checked to give permission, from older version (s). No matter how many times I played with this, the app would not function. I tried to reinstall the older version of 4.3. Same thing. I have the program in the APPLICATIONS FOLDER, not in any sub-folder. Have fixed permissions, restarted, etc. Now no version of this app will install properly, and it is useless. Please advise if you're having same problems. I'm running 10.9.5 TIA –– Annie

One thing i don't like or don't know how to make it work, is that when you have a window that has been collapsed, and for example Safari is now over it, if you go to the dock and click that window behind, it doesn't come in front... you have to move the front window and then reclick the collapsed one to appear again. :-(

Very nice app. But before I buy, I need to know if it will work with OSX10.11 There is no info about this to be found.

Chris, can you please explain in more detail what "off-screen window handling" is. How is it better than the other option "Minimize to Dock"? Does it simply move collapsed windows to another space, instead of to the Dock? Thanks!

"3x faster than previous versions!" I'm 3X Slower with this Upgrade on a 2010 Mac Pro in Mavericks. Maybe I'm doing something wrong(?)

For those of you who may be wondering which is better, Deskovery or WindowMizer, since yesterday, I have checked out both apps and would like to offer my two cents worth.

Due to a variety of issues I was having with the previous build of WindowMizer -- 4.2.1 -- I had a much more positive experience when using the Deskovery demo. In fact, I was seriously contemplating whether or not I should fork over $20 and purchase it. After all, all I really wanted was the WindowShade effect, and none of the other bells and whistles that Deskovery offers, so paying $20 seemed kind of steep just to gain that one function on my machine.

However, today Chris released a new build of WindowMizer -- 4.3.0 -- and I am happy to say that except for one connection issue -- which Chris is already aware of -- WindowMizer worked flawlessly with 29 of the 30 apps that I tried with it. The only app which would not scroll up WindowShade style, was Hear 1.2.4 (1151.95.16). I am not sure why that is.

At any rate, if your primary interest is in restoring the long lost WindowShade effect to your computer -- along with its sound effects, window transparency option, etc., then I encourage you to consider purchasing WindowMizer. At its new low price of $8.99, I think that it is a pretty fair deal.

Of course, us long-time Mac users have been wondering for years now why Apple hasn't found it in its heart to restore this cool feature to Mac OS X. It shouldn't require a third party app to scroll up our windows, but thanks Chris for making the WindowShade effect available to us once again. :)

Oh, BTW, I am currently running the GM Candidate of El Capitan.

$15 for a recycling of the old WindowShade utility! How enterprising! Will wonders ever cease?

Although the developer says yes this app actually does not work in Mac OS 10.6 ( SnowLeopard ). I downloaded the version 4.1 ( from MacUpdate and from Developer ) and get the big old slash thru the app so to be sure tried to launch only to told that the version will not work in my 10.6. Therefor not sure why the developer would state that the app works in 10.6.

Looks nice and seems a good replacement for our old window shade. But in Demomode ist works only 20 minutes and than it quits (as announced). But for a real testing that's very annoying. In the moment it doesn't run most time of the day because I'm to lazy to restart it every 20 minutes... And so on it's not possible to detect any (bad) side effects on my daily work. A better strategy is in my opinion to remember one an hour that it is unregistered an after a week the test period will be over. So until now only 2,5 stars, if the Demomode works better it would get 4 stars and I'm pretty shure that if it really does it's job and I own it than it will get the 5th star immediately

This is for the DEVELOPER: I downloaded the free Demo on a new macbook pro (with Yosemite) and dragged the Windowmizer icon into the Applications folder. An icon appeared in my Applications folder, but when I clicked on it, a window appeared that read: “WindowMizer” can’t be opened because the identity of the developed cannot be confirmed. Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the Mac App Store and identified developers. Now I’m concerned that if I buy the app, I’ll run into the same problem. I don’t actually need the Demo. I just want to be sure the app will run if I buy it. Can you please help? Thanks.

I really like having the ability to window-shade App windows on my desktop. It's nostalgic and for me at least... productive. It works, if you're one of this 'visual' and don't mind 'mess' kind of people. And I made the purchase, after seeing 'WindowMizer' on sale recently. Like those crafty 'Haxies' of old, I feel that system tweaks like this - should be only a few bucks. Five tops - An impulse buy... ( lower price, sell more) Yes, it's fully featured, but essentially... it turns an open window into a single title bar. That's surely not fifteen dollars? My gripes, that this latest version ( 4.1 ) doesn't completely collapse Finder windows anymore. I have the 'Path bar' 'Tab bar' and 'toolbar' all showing on window-shading?
Lastly, I would like mail.app's title bar to update as new mail arrives. At the moment, it just goes dormant when window-shaded. If it did this... it would be incredibly useful, and you might actually be able to call WindowMizer an application.

It's a useful utility, especially if you remember it from years gone by. OS8/9 and then those pesky Haxies. Definitely worth a try, to see if it improves your work flow or... all that desktop clutter, drives you mad. As Apple's user interface team decided - many moons ago.

WindowMizer is one of those utilities that I just can't rave about. It isn't exciting. What it is though, is an extremely useful utility that does what it was designed to do and does it very well. What I would like to see in a future version is to have it removed from the dock and only displayed in the menu bar. I see no need to have it displayed in both places. Since it essentially works invisibly in the background, it really has no need to take up dock realestate. All in all, I would gladly recommend this app.

I've been using this for a while now, and I'm not as bothered by the slight delay in its response as I thought I might be.
This is an essential addition for someone like me who likes to 'blink' between windows, such as web pages or processed images, to compare the differences.

My recently installed DiskWarrior 5 will not launch with WindowMizer 4.01 open on my late 2012 iMac running Yosemite (10.10). If you use both programs, you may encounter this conflict as well.

great idea but lag is too much when restoring after minimizing to thumbnail.. after clicking it takes about 4 or five seconds to restore.

(O_o) Version 4.0 seems to have been released prematurely: - The website isn't read for it at all. v4.0 is mentioned exactly nowhere at this moment in time. Not even in the beta forum thread. - When you ask 4.0 to check for updates, it throws an error. Huh? But it IS a FREE update. I had to make v4.0 look for my registration, as there never was an activation code. I put in my email address and the password I was provided when I originally purchased v2. It churned away and thanked me! All is ready and working.

Download is version 4 but their web site has the announcement that WindowMizer 3.4.1 is now available! The price of 15 bucks is way way way too much for a one trick pony. It should be priced at about five or seven bucks since all it really does is roll your desktop windows up and down.

Wondering how the next release of Mac OS Weeds in going to like WindowMizer.

Phenomenal Utility. Does it's job fantastically well. Stable. Doesnt adversely effect your system in any way. I personally find it essential and now that I use it I cannot imagine using my mac without it. Huge productivity gain. Support this utility and the developer. This is quality software, far better than the competition (which I have tested) and well worth the price. I bought 2 licenses so I can use it on 4 machines.

This version marks WindowMizer's full maturity IMHO. New features have been swiftly integrated and now it's what it promised to be, a great replacement for the dead and gone WindowShade X haxie. Bravo RGBWorld and thank you! WindowMiser is well worth the price. For those who find windowshading, window transparency and reduction to thumbnails FAR more useful and productive than minimizing to the dock, this is THE answer. My only complaint is that getting the sounds to play during actions can be a bit iffy. I highly suspect this is directly related to OS X, not just this application. This is not a problem unique to just WindowMizer. This problem is variable depending upon what version of OS X you are running. For those interested in the lineage from WindowShade through WindowMizer, RGBWorld has written up a nice history: http://www.rgbworld.com/extras/blog/getblog?blog_id=17 I'll add to the history that Unsanity.org, who provided APE and the WindowShade X haxie, is now defunct. Their remaining assets are supposedly run by Geekspiff.com, but the website is offline ATM.

update 3.3 was good.. the reduce to thumbnail action is better than the windowshade imho. i still think it would be better to reduce to app icon.. i could not get premiere pro to windowmize.. and sounds are not available when reducing to thumbnail... and yes, it is still slow but it is the best thing there is right now.

this app is a great idea but sadly it is slow and lacks an important feature.. it takes about a second to minimize the window and about a second to open.. you should have the ability to minimize into an icon so you can quickly identify the one to be un-minimized.. otherwise they all look the same and you take a long time to find it when you have many minimized apps.

I don't see the point of this application. It minimizes the window to the dock with double clicking the toolbar area. Isn't it just to click on the 'Amber' button to minimize the window (by Apple default)? I'd prefer to do a single click on the 'Amber' button than paying money ($14.99) to do double clicking to minimize the window. That's my 2 cents.

Certainly WindowMizer works as a windowshade application. And being an app is far better than Unsanities Haxie. Pretty much a one-trick pony and I have long wondered why Apple would take this pony away. (Yes, I know - minimize to the Dock took its place). That said there is still a split second lag is shading or unshading that I find myself wanting to double click a title bar again thinking it had not received my clicks. Why it does not get 5 stars: First from their www site I gather the original version of WindowMizer was released sometime around 23-Feb-2013. So now only 6,5 months later we have had to pay for v. 1, v. 2 upgrade and now v. 3 upgrade. Wow - I thought prepaying for a future version of Unsanity products was nuts. Second - I wonder about their support. If you look in their General Discussion Forum for WindowMizer their last reply to any user is on 15-July-2013. And there is not that much traffic so why no replies to the other calls for help. Third - and this may be resolved as I have email them: I purchased a 6-computer license of WM 2.x on 13-May-2013. Right now the only upgrade I see if for 2-computers. I feel that within 5 months I should be getting a FREE upgrade and I would like to stay honest and get a 6-computer license again. I'll report back about their response.

First, positives. It basically works as advertised and allows you to windowshade your windows without haxies and without modifying your system (which is a huge bonus). There are many different settings, so the app is very polished and complete. The shaded windows play nice with Exposé in 10.6.8 and Spaces (which is vital). You can even move the shaded windows around to other Spaces when showing all Spaces as well. It seems stable and doesn't appear to slow down my computer at all. It has most all the options you would expect from a Windowshade app including choosing transparent windows of varying opacity instead, etc. On the downside, you're basically forced to hide all docked windows to the application icon or your dock will get cluttered up pretty quickly because this works by minimizing your windows to the Dock. That's a give and take and I much wish there was some way to windowshade the windows without them having to minimize go to the Dock. This would make it work much more like traditional Windowshade apps I used to see with OS 9 which were fantastic. Also, there's a slight lag after double-clicking even after choosing all the most optimal settings to speed it up. This is also because of its dependency on minimizing windows I assume. It's not a long delay, but on a powerful computer I get used to near-instant responsiveness in everything I do, so it's a little jarring to see something delay for a half-sec. On the positive side again, you can at the expense of adding more windows to your Dock and having less space in your Dock, turn off minimizing to app and you'll see all your Windows again instead of being tucked inside your app icons. Overall, this minimizing dependency is the main reason I'm turned off by WindowMizer but ironically I suspect it's also the very reason it functions so well without having to alter the system. One glaring mistake is the lack of ability to hide the WindowMizer icon from the Dock taking up previous space. I'll probably end up hacking it to remove it, but it'd be much better if the developer added that as an option in the preferences instead similar to apps like LaunchBar, etc. I've put it through its paces and it doesn't seem to use much system resources at all. That said, I have run into odd behavior here and there. For example, I've click on shaded windows and they've opened up in another Space. That might have been from moving it to another Space previously or something, but for whatever the reason that's a bug I hope gets squashed. I haven't yet tested on my Mountain Lion machines, but I'll report back later if it causes trouble there, which I doubt it will because the dev seems very responsive to fixing bugs. In the end, I'm still deciding if it's worth it considering I have to change my Dock behavior by minimizing windows to apps or don't do it and deal with cluttering up my Dock. I wish I didn't have to make that choice, and hope the dev figures out a stable workaround to that situation. That said, I'm very happy to see a new, stable, Windowshade app on the OS X scene. I've found Deskovery works better, but I've found it to be buggy and cause conflicts. On the other hand, WindowMizer doesn't seem to conflict with things like DockView which is a critical positive or I couldn't use WindowMizer. For now, I'm going to continue to use WindowMizer and play with the Dock settings back and forth to see if I can work efficiently with not seeing my minimized windows in the dock. Then I'll try it without minimizing to apps and see how bad it is having WindowMizer adding more stuff to the Dock. I think I'll probably just deal with the latter in the end and be pretty happy with it.

Just found WindowMizer and tried the Demo. One nice feature is that you can choose to make the front window transparent rather than roll it up - see under Preferences > Minimize. I’m disappointed that the windowshading effect is not instantaneous, unlike the original WindowShade. I thought I had found the solution under Preferences > Advanced, where there is a box to adjust the Wait time for the windowshade effect. However, this doesn’t seen to work -- whether the Wait time is set to 1 sec or 0, the lag still seems to be the same. Is this a bug? Can we get the windowshading to be near-instantaneous?

Hey RGB: Thanx so much for responding here. I've joined Forum for certain clients and had mixed luck getting any actual answers to my questions. Does WM roll-up all the windows (Option + Double-Click )in a given application the way Windowshade did? I'm still in Snow Leopard and thinking about upgrading to Mountain Lion... and I love my now defunct WindowShade so I need something good to replace it.

Why would you pay even a Dollar for something you dislike so much?

Too expensive for what you get. I've checked out the demo version and didn't liked the way that manages the titlebars. Shaded windows get restored when you recover from a minimized instance, the icon stays permanently on the dock taking over your precious space, and there's little enhancement to get more options (you could also have set a way to activate right click over the title and get some extra option like staying on top, transparency, etc) I'm sorry but I am not going to buy it. I've been using other third party tools for windows handling through different platforms (Linux, BeOS, Windows) and this one is, by far, the poorest one that I have found. Give it by no more than 1$ and - perhaps - I'd buy it.

Downloaded the demo 3 days ago, and so far so good. But for one thing: I'm using it on a Japanese system, and the app is, yes, localized to it, but the translation is terrible. IMHO, developers shouldn't localize their apps into languages they don't understand unless they have a reliable translator. Machine translation is sometimes worse than nothing, since it can render the app completely incomprehensible.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT: Internet connection for Activation. No offline option provided.

Seems to works fairly well. It does take about half a second from the time I double click to minimize the titlebar. So not quite instantaneous. Also, for every window titlebar that is minimized, that window goes to the dock. Then when I double click again it comes out of the dock. I just want the titlebar minimized, I don't want anything in the dock. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. I'm on 10.8.3

I decided to try the demo. So I first deactivated WindowShade so that there would be no conflicts. But even though I have WindowMizer set to "Reduce to Titlebar" on the Double-click titlebar action under the Minimize Behavior setting, all that happens when I double-click the titlebar of a window is that it goes to the dock. No titlebar left on the screen -- which kind of defeats WM's purpose. I am running SL. Am I doing something wrong?

It would be helpful to use windowmizer in the menubar. So that you can switch off windowmizer in the dock!

This app works to some extent but it needs to be a control panel instead of a separate app. It also doesn't respond to the double click command the first time right away. I've had to double click two or three times to work. Glad this is a demo.

Since there is no trial of this I can't comment on how it works. I just remember Windowshade and all the problems we had with the developer of that. When it worked it was great. But years would go by when a new OS would disable it and eventually it went away completely. I hope this works better but, again, with no trial I'm not putting my $$ down.