Automating window management when connected to an external display?

Questions & Suggestions
1

Hey all! I’m currently working on figuring out a way to automate my setup so that, whenever I connect a second display to a laptop, it...

  1. Opens and moves certain apps to split view on the second display (mail & safari)
  2. Opens certain apps in full screen in 3 or 4 spaces on the main display (messages, slack, etc.)

The impetus for this is that I often have client meetings that require me to exit apps that may have any sensitive information on them beforehand, and I’d love to create an automation for whenever I return to my desk, I’d like to have it recognize the connection to an external monitor as the trigger for recreating the standard window and display setup I use most often.

I’ve figured out how to do the first item with Moom, which pretty much works perfectly when using its “automatically activate when connected to a 2nd display” feature. It seems like the second item should be possible with Keyboard Maestro, but I’m not sure I know the application well enough to make it work. The tricky thing here is it needs to open apps in full screen, not just open and arrange windows around the same screen.

Any thoughts on how to solve this second issue?

Thanks!

2 Likes
2

I am trying to make this happen too. I have a home office monitor setup (two monitors) and an office monitor setup (one monitor). I have both sets of KBM shortcuts in separate Macro Groups to keep them separated and use different KB shortcuts to open the same apps different.

I set up both Macro Groups with sizing all my apps (Slack, BB Edit, Chrome, Outlook, Reminders, Notes, Messages, PhaseExpress) to match both setups. Test them all a few times to make sure they all work as intended (in both setups) and then save a backup of both Macro Groups.

Things are great for a week in both offices and then out of no where, both groups stop resizing the Apps as setup originally and throw my app all over the place. I took screen shots of a few to see if the settings change and no change. I delete the two office Macro Groups, install my clean backups and the same behavior exists.

I am still trying to figure this out on my own to understand the logic behind all of this, but I am stumped. Not sure if this is a Bug in the software. I been thinking about reaching out to KBM directly, but wanted to post here first.

Thanks to ever can respond to us.