How to Keep a Window Always on Top on Mac

Windows and most Linux desktops have an always-on-top button. macOS doesn't — not in Ventura, Sonoma, or Sequoia, and there's no hidden setting that adds one. But before you install anything, it's worth asking what you want floating: for video, notes, and reference material, macOS already has answers.

The honest answer first

There is no native, global "keep this window on top" command in macOS. No menu item, no keyboard shortcut, no defaults write key. Apple's window layering follows focus: the active window sits in front, everything else stacks behind it. Third-party window utilities can pin arbitrary windows using accessibility APIs, but out of the box, the feature simply isn't there.

Why doesn't it exist? Apple reserves the floating window layers for system surfaces — panels, alerts, Picture in Picture — and has never exposed a "pin this" control for ordinary windows. The good news: what macOS does have are purpose-built floats that cover the most common reasons people search for this. Match your use case below.

For video: Picture in Picture

If the window you want on top is a video, Picture in Picture is the real thing — a borderless player that floats above every window, every app, even full-screen Spaces.

1. Play the video in Safari.
2. Right-click the video. On YouTube and similar sites the first right-click opens the site's own menu — right-click a second time to get Safari's menu.
3. Choose Enter Picture in Picture.

The floating player can be dragged to any corner and resized by its edges, and it stays on top of everything until you close it or send the video back. Chrome and Firefox have their own equivalents.

For notes: Stickies floats natively

The ancient Stickies app (find it with Spotlight) is the one Apple app with a true always-on-top mode. Click a note, then choose Window → Float on Top. That note now hovers over every other window — perfect for a checklist, a phone number, or meeting talking points. It's set per note, so you can float one sticky and leave the rest normal. The same menu has Translucent, which lets you half-see the window underneath. To undo either, choose the menu item again to uncheck it.

For reference work: stop floating, start tiling

If the goal is "keep the docs visible while I write," a pinned window is actually the clumsy solution — it covers whatever you're working on. Tiling is cleaner: put the reference window in one half or quarter of the screen and your working window in the rest, and nothing ever overlaps.

• On macOS 15 Sequoia, drag a window to a screen edge or corner, or use Window → Move & Resize — halves have shortcuts like fn + Ctrl + ←.
• On Ventura and Sonoma, hover the green button and pick a Split View side, or size the two windows manually once — macOS remembers window positions per app.

Tiling has a quiet advantage over a pinned window: focus still works normally. You can type in one window while reading the other, and neither ever steals clicks meant for the window underneath — a constant irritation with true always-on-top panels. If the reference material is a PDF or web page you only glance at occasionally, a second desktop (Space) with a Ctrl + → flick between them is another zero-overlap option.

If you really need arbitrary pinning

Developers and traders who need any window pinned will need a third-party window manager — that's the honest limit of stock macOS. For everyone else, PiP plus tiling covers it: see how to tile four windows in quarters for the full reference-layout setup.