Installation

Rift is distributed as a universal macOS binary for Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The Homebrew formula installs both rift and rift-cli. Keep the two binaries from the same release.

Before starting, turn on Displays have separate Spaces in System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Mission Control. Rift checks this setting at launch and exits with an explanation when it is disabled.

Homebrew

brew install acsandmann/tap/rift

Install and start the background service:

rift service install
rift service start

The first launch may stop after asking for Accessibility access. Grant the permission, then run rift service restart.

To upgrade later:

brew upgrade rift
rift service restart

Release archive

If you prefer not to use Homebrew, download the latest archive from the Rift releases page. Extract it, put the rift and rift-cli binaries somewhere on your PATH, and make sure they are executable:

tar -xzf rift-universal-macos-VERSION.tar.gz
sudo install -m 755 rift rift-cli /usr/local/bin/

Replace VERSION with the version in the downloaded filename. Then run rift service install and rift service start, as shown above.

Give Rift Accessibility access

Rift uses macOS Accessibility APIs to discover, focus, move, resize, and arrange windows. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, approve Rift when prompted, and then restart it:

rift service restart

When you run rift directly from a terminal instead of as a service, the terminal app may also need Accessibility access.

Stop Rift

To stop the background service:

rift service stop

Run rift service start when you want to use it again.

Verify the install

command -v rift rift-cli
rift --help
rift-cli query displays

The first command should print paths for both binaries, and rift --help should show Rift’s options. After the service is running, rift-cli query displays should return JSON describing your displays.

Continue with Quick start to activate tiling. If the query cannot connect, see Troubleshooting.