Rectangle Not Working After a macOS Update? Here's the Fix 

By Ryan Hanson, creator of Rectangle · Tested on macOS 15.5 with Rectangle 0.96 · Updated July 2026

Short version: Almost every time Rectangle stops working after a macOS update, the cause is the same — the Accessibility permission got reset or invalidated. The fix takes two minutes: remove Rectangle from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, add it back, and restart the app. If that doesn't do it, the other fixes are below in order of how often they work.

Why this happens after every update

It looks like the update broke the app, but that's not quite what happened. macOS ties Accessibility permissions to a specific version of an application, and system updates can invalidate that grant — the toggle still appears switched on in System Settings, while the permission underneath is no longer valid. So Rectangle launches, looks fine, sits in your menu bar, and simply does nothing when you press a shortcut.

This is why the same fix works over and over: you're not repairing damage, you're re-establishing a permission macOS quietly dropped. It also explains the most confusing symptom — the setting looks correct, so people skip past it looking for a deeper problem that isn't there.

Fix 1: Re-grant Accessibility permission

This resolves the large majority of cases. The important detail is that toggling the switch off and on often isn't enough — you need to remove the entry entirely and add it back.

Open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, then Accessibility. Find Rectangle in the list and select it, then use the minus button to remove it completely. Quit Rectangle from the menu bar. Relaunch it, and when it prompts for Accessibility access, grant it fresh — or add it manually with the plus button, pointing at Rectangle in your Applications folder. Test a shortcut. In most cases, it's working again at this point.

Fix 2: Fully quit and relaunch, not just restart

Sometimes the permission is fine but Rectangle's running process is in a bad state after the update. Quit Rectangle properly from its menu bar icon rather than assuming it restarted with your Mac, then launch it again from Applications. It sounds trivial, but a stale process that started before the permission was re-established is a genuinely common cause, and this costs ten seconds to rule out.

Fix 3: Update Rectangle itself

Major macOS releases occasionally change window behavior in ways that need an app-side update. If you're running an older Rectangle build against a new macOS version, check for a newer release — either through Rectangle's own update check, or with Homebrew:

brew upgrade --cask rectangle

Running a current version against a current macOS is worth confirming before spending time on deeper troubleshooting.

Fix 4: Check for shortcut conflicts

If Rectangle is clearly running and drag-to-snap works but keyboard shortcuts don't, the problem probably isn't permissions at all — another app is claiming those key combinations. macOS updates sometimes introduce or re-enable system shortcuts that collide with Rectangle's defaults.

Test this by trying drag-to-snap: drag a window to a screen edge. If that snaps correctly while shortcuts stay dead, you've confirmed a conflict rather than a permission issue. The fix is to remap either Rectangle's shortcut or the conflicting one. Rectangle lets you rebind every action, so it's usually easier to change it there.

Fix 5: Secure Input blocking keystrokes

This one is obscure but real. macOS has a feature called Secure Input that some apps enable when handling passwords, and while it's active, other apps can be blocked from receiving keystrokes. If an app leaves Secure Input stuck on — a password field in a terminal or browser that never released it — Rectangle's shortcuts stop registering even with correct permissions.

The practical test is whether shortcuts fail everywhere or only sometimes. If they die after you use a particular app, quit that app and try again. Restarting your Mac clears a stuck Secure Input state reliably if you can't identify the culprit.

Fix 6: Reset Rectangle's settings

If nothing above works, a corrupted preferences file is the remaining likely cause. Rectangle has a reset option in its settings that restores defaults without uninstalling. That wipes your custom shortcuts, so it's a later step rather than a first move, but it clears out a bad configuration cleanly.

Fix 7: Clean reinstall

The last resort, and rarely needed. Quit Rectangle, remove it from the Accessibility list, delete the app, then reinstall from the official site or Homebrew and grant permission fresh. A clean reinstall resolves the rare cases where the app bundle itself was affected by the update.

Preventing it next time

You can't fully prevent macOS from invalidating permissions, but you can make it painless. After any major macOS update, expect to re-grant Accessibility access to Rectangle for Mac and any other window manager — treat it as a routine post-update step rather than a malfunction. It's a known consequence of how Apple handles these permissions across system versions, and it affects every app in this category, not just Rectangle.

Keeping Rectangle current also helps, since updated builds handle new macOS versions more gracefully. If you installed through Homebrew, brew upgrade --cask rectangle alongside your other updates keeps that maintained without thinking about it.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Rectangle stop working after updating macOS?

The macOS update invalidated Rectangle's Accessibility permission. This happens because macOS ties that permission to a specific app version, and system updates can silently drop the grant — the toggle often still looks enabled while the permission underneath is no longer valid.

How do I fix Rectangle not snapping windows?

Remove Rectangle from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility using the minus button, quit the app, relaunch it, and grant the permission fresh. Toggling the switch off and on is frequently not enough; removing and re-adding the entry is what actually works.

Rectangle is running but shortcuts don't work — what now?

Test drag-to-snap first. If dragging a window to a screen edge snaps correctly but shortcuts don't, it's a keyboard conflict rather than a permission problem — another app is claiming those key combinations. Remap the shortcut in Rectangle's settings to resolve it.

Do I need to reinstall Rectangle after every macOS update?

No. Re-granting the Accessibility permission is almost always sufficient, and takes about two minutes. A full reinstall is a last resort for the rare cases where re-granting permission, restarting the app, and updating it all fail.

Written and tested by Ryan Hanson, creator of Rectangle, on macOS 15.5.