The short version: Nearly every time Rectangle quits working after a macOS update, the culprit is identical — the Accessibility permission got reset or invalidated. The fix takes two minutes: remove Rectangle from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, add it back, restart the app. If that doesn’t land it, the remaining fixes follow in order of how often they work.
Why this keeps happening after updates
It feels like the update broke the app, but that’s not really what occurred. macOS binds Accessibility permissions to a specific version of an application, and system updates can invalidate that grant — the toggle still reads as switched on in System Settings while the permission underneath has gone stale. So Rectangle launches, looks healthy, sits in your menu bar, and does absolutely nothing when you press a shortcut.
That’s why the same fix keeps working: you’re not repairing damage, you’re re-establishing a permission macOS quietly dropped. It also explains the most disorienting symptom — the setting looks right, so people scroll past it hunting for a deeper problem that was never there.
Fix 1: Re-grant Accessibility permission
This clears the large majority of cases. The detail that matters: flipping the switch off and back on frequently isn’t enough — you need to remove the entry outright and re-add it.
Open System Settings, head to Privacy & Security, then Accessibility. Find the Rectangle app in the list, select it, and use the minus button to remove it completely. Quit Rectangle from the menu bar. Relaunch, and when it prompts for Accessibility access, grant it fresh — or add it by hand with the plus button, pointing at Rectangle in Applications. Test a shortcut. Most of the time, you’re back in business right here.
Fix 2: Fully quit and relaunch, not just restart
Occasionally the permission is intact but Rectangle’s running process is in a bad state post-update. Quit Rectangle properly from its menu bar icon rather than assuming it relaunched with your Mac, then start it again from Applications. It sounds trivial, but a stale process that began before the permission was re-established is a genuinely common cause, and ruling it out costs ten seconds.
Fix 3: Update Rectangle itself
Major macOS releases sometimes shift window behavior in ways that need an app-side update. If you’re running an older Rectangle build against a fresh macOS version, check for a newer release — through Rectangle’s own update check, or with Homebrew: brew upgrade --cask rectangle. Confirming a current version against a current macOS is worth doing before you sink time into deeper troubleshooting.
Fix 4: Check for shortcut conflicts
If Rectangle is clearly alive and drag-to-snap works but keyboard shortcuts don’t, permissions probably aren’t the issue at all — another app has claimed those key combinations. macOS updates occasionally introduce or re-enable system shortcuts that collide with Rectangle’s defaults.
Test it by dragging a window to a screen edge. If that snaps fine while shortcuts stay dead, you’ve confirmed a conflict rather than a permission fault. Fix it by remapping either Rectangle’s shortcut or the competing one. Rectangle rebinds every action, so changing it there is usually the easier path.
Fix 5: Secure Input blocking keystrokes
This one’s obscure but real. macOS has a feature called Secure Input that some apps switch on while 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 permissions in order.
The practical test is whether shortcuts fail constantly or only sometimes. If they die after you use one particular app, quit that app and try again. Restarting your Mac reliably clears a stuck Secure Input state if you can’t pin down the culprit.
Fix 6: Reset Rectangle’s settings
If nothing above lands, a corrupted preferences file is the remaining likely suspect. Rectangle includes a reset option in its settings that restores defaults without uninstalling. It wipes your custom shortcuts, so it belongs later in the list rather than first, but it clears a bad configuration cleanly.
Fix 7: Clean reinstall
Last resort, and rarely necessary. 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 handles the uncommon cases where the app bundle itself was affected by the update.
Making next time painless
You can’t stop macOS from invalidating permissions, but you can stop being surprised by it. 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 chore, not a malfunction. It’s a known consequence of how Apple handles these permissions across system versions, and it hits every app in this category, not just Rectangle.
Keeping Rectangle current helps too, since updated builds handle new macOS versions more gracefully. If you installed via Homebrew, running brew upgrade --cask rectangle alongside your other updates keeps that maintained without you thinking about it.
Frequently asked questions
Whether you use Rectangle for Mac with keyboard shortcuts or the drag-to-snap feature, the fix is the same: remove and re-add the Accessibility entry. If you don’t have Rectangle yet, it’s a free open-source window manager that makes split-screen effortless.
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.
