Window recovery
Restore parked windows after a move failure or interrupted session.
stags hides a window by moving it to a display edge. Before the move, it writes the original frame and application identity to ${XDG_STATE_HOME:-~/.local/state}/stags/parking.json. This recovery journal does not save tag assignments or the selected view.
Some apps reject an Accessibility move or clamp the position to the screen. stags query reports an error for a window when parking or restoring fails. A one-pixel strip may remain visible even after a successful move.
Restore while the daemon runs #
stags restore
This shows every known tag and restores parked windows in the active macOS Space. The daemon keeps running. If a parked window belongs to another Space, switch to that Space and run stags restore again. You can then select a narrower view.
Stop the daemon #
stags stop
Ctrl+C and termination signals also attempt to restore parked windows. If any recorded window cannot be restored, stags stop reports the failure and leaves the daemon running. A signal handler reports the failure to standard error and does the same. Switch to the window’s macOS Space, run stags restore, and retry stags stop.
If the process exits unexpectedly, start it again. It reads the journal and tries to restore a recorded window when that window’s Space becomes active. Failed entries stay in the journal for another attempt. Keep parking.json while it contains windows you still need to restore.
stags checks the window ID and application identity before using a recovery record. It drops records for apps that have quit. The journal records window positions, not application state.