---
title: Columns
description: Columns instead of yabai's spiral, per display or space.
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/yabar/layouts/columns
---

# Columns
With its default `split_type auto`, yabai splits the focused window along its longer side, so windows spiral. A
profile's **Columns** lines them up side by side instead:

| yabai's spiral                                                                                               | Four columns                                                                                                    |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| ![Four windows in yabai's spiral](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/yabar/images/shots/layouts/spiral.jpg) | ![The same four windows as columns](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/yabar/images/shots/layouts/columns.jpg) |

- New windows split the focused one sideways (`split_type vertical` for the space), and yabai keeps the columns equal
  (`auto_balance`), unless [focus sizing](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/yabar/layouts/focus-sizing) sizes them.
- **Beyond the columns**, a new window becomes a **row** under the focused tile (the default), or joins its **stack**.
- **Re-arrange this space as columns** in the [launcher](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/yabar/moving-around/launcher) lays out the windows already
  there: the first tiles as columns in their order, the rest as rows; stacks move whole.

Apps with a minimum size keep it: a window that won't get narrower than its column overlaps its neighbour.