Rectangle Hotkeys Not Working? Fix It in Order of Likelihood

Quick answer: When a Rectangle mac keyboard shortcut stops working, the cause is almost always one of four things: missing Accessibility permission, a shortcut conflict with macOS or another app, Rectangle app being ignored for the frontmost app, or a window that can’t be resized. Check them in that order. Most fixes take under two minutes.

You press Ctrl+Opt+Left, and nothing happens. Or it worked yesterday, you updated macOS, and now it’s dead. Before you reinstall anything, spend one minute on the diagnostic below.

First, what exactly is failing? What you see Most likely cause Jump to Nothing works: no shortcuts, no drag snapping Accessibility permission Fix 1 Some shortcuts work, others don’t Conflict with another app or macOS Fix 2 Works everywhere except one app App is ignored, or the app restricts resizing Fix 3 Shortcut fires but the window doesn’t move or resize The window can’t be resized (fixed-size or full-screen) Fix 4 Worked until you changed something in Preferences Shortcut mode or a rebind Fix 5 Nothing else helped Corrupted preferences or stale permission entry Fix 6 Fix 1: Re-grant Accessibility permission

Rectangle moves windows of other apps, so macOS requires it to be approved under Accessibility. If that approval is missing or stale, every shortcut and drag action silently fails.

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Find Rectangle in the list and confirm the toggle is on. If it’s already on, toggle it off and on again. If that doesn’t work, select Rectangle, click the minus (–) button to remove it, then relaunch Rectangle and approve the prompt again.

A permission that looks enabled but doesn’t work is a common state after macOS updates or after replacing the app with a new copy. Removing and re-adding the entry clears it. Terminal users can do the same with tccutil reset Accessibility com.knollsoft.Rectangle , then relaunch the app.

Also confirm Rectangle is actually running. Look for its icon in the menu bar. If you’ve hidden the icon, check Activity Monitor.

Fix 2: Look for shortcut conflicts

Rectangle’s default “Recommended” shortcuts use Ctrl+Opt with the arrow keys. Another app or a system shortcut can grab the same combination first, in which case Rectangle never sees it.

Check these in order:

macOS shortcuts: System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts. Look through Mission Control, Keyboard, Input Sources, and App Shortcuts for matching combinations. Other window and launcher tools: Raycast, Alfred, BetterTouchTool, Keyboard Maestro, Magnet, Moom, and similar apps can bind the same keys. Quit them one at a time and retest. Rectangle itself: Open Rectangle’s Preferences and look at the Shortcuts tab. A field showing a different combination than you expect means it was rebound.

A conflict usually shows up as only some shortcuts failing, not all of them. If “left half” works but “right half” doesn’t, suspect a conflict, not permissions.

Using macOS’s built-in tiling too? Recent macOS versions have their own window tiling with drag-to-edge behavior and tiling commands in the Window menu. These live under System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Windows . If you only want one tool snapping windows, turn the built-in drag-to-edge option off so the two don’t compete.

Fix 3: Check whether Rectangle is ignoring the current app

Rectangle lets you ignore specific apps, which is handy for games or apps that manage their own windows. Click the Rectangle menu bar icon while the problem app is frontmost. If you see an option to stop ignoring that app (rather than to ignore it), the app is on the ignore list. Switch it back and the shortcuts will return for that app.

If the app isn’t ignored and shortcuts still fail only there, the app may be doing something unusual with its windows (custom title bars, a non-standard window type, or a fixed-size panel). Test with Finder or Safari to confirm Rectangle itself is healthy.

Fix 4: The shortcut fires, but the window won’t move

This is a different problem from “the hotkey doesn’t work,” and it’s worth separating because the fix is different.

Full-screen windows sit in their own Space and can’t be snapped. Exit full screen first. Fixed-size windows (some utility panels, settings windows, and installers) refuse resizing. Rectangle can’t override that. Windows with minimum sizes may not fit a quarter or third layout, so they