Dock Claude and Codex together in the basket

Before you start

• Pairbar installed, with the Claude and Codex desktop apps open.
• The Accessibility permission for Pairbar (moving windows needs it; without it, Pairbar shows how to allow it).
• Optional: Screen Recording, only for smoother animations and drag pictures.

Steps

1. Choose Basket
   Click the layout button in the sidebar's header (next to the new-chat button) and choose Basket, or type "Basket" in ⌘K. The window you're using stays where it is, at its size, and the other app docks next to it: on the right when there's room, otherwise on the side with more room. Only if neither side has room does the basket move, then shrink to fit.
2. Pick an arrangement
   From the layout button, ⌘K or the small pill on the basket's top edge: Side by side, Stacked (one above the other) or Focus (one app at a time in the whole card, the other right behind it). Leaving Focus brings back the split you had.
3. Swap the apps
   Press ⌃⌥⌘S (or Swap apps) to exchange their places; in Focus it brings the other app to the front in the same spot. Opening a chat of the other app from the sidebar does the same in Focus.
4. Share the room
   Drag the line between the apps (the pointer turns into ↔, or ↕ when stacked). It stops where either app would get smaller than 420 pt or than the app allows, settles on 50/50 when you're close, and Side by side and Stacked each remember the split you set.
5. Move and resize it as one window
   Drag the sidebar's empty space or header, or either app by its title bar, to move everything. Resize by any outer edge or corner, including the sidebar's side. The apps take their new places once, when you let go.
6. Save the setup for this desk
   Settings → Windows → Save current setup… remembers the basket's frame, arrangement and split for the displays connected now. It suggests "Laptop" or "Desk". Turn on Restore a saved setup when displays change to have it come back when you plug a display in or out.

Overlay or Basket?

Pairbar starts in Overlay. Going back is one click: Overlay in the layout button, ⌘K, the pill, or the basket's own red window button. Both apps stay open, one on top of the other, and each app's own sidebar comes back.

Shortcuts

Only Swap apps has a shortcut to start with. Give Overlay, Basket, Side by side, Stacked or Focus one in Settings → Shortcuts. See Keyboard.

Hide the apps' own sidebars

With Hide the apps' own sidebars in the basket on (Settings → Windows, on to start with), Pairbar's sidebar is the basket's only one: a column on the left, with the apps showing just their chats to its right. Pairbar presses the item in each app's own View menu (Claude's "Hide Sidebar", Codex's "Toggle Sidebar"), never a keystroke; if an app has no such item, its sidebar simply stays. Show Claude's own sidebar in the layout menu brings one back while docked, and Overlay restores both. You always have one sidebar: Pairbar can't be hidden in the basket, docking shows it if it was down to its round button, and hiding Pairbar in Overlay (⌃⌥S) shows the app's own sidebar if it's hidden.

Smooth animation and Screen Recording

Going into the basket, changing its arrangement and swapping glide into place in about a quarter of a second, and the real windows move only once, underneath. Screen Recording is optional: with it, Pairbar animates pictures of the two windows and shows them while you drag; without it, a stand-in of plain panes with each app's icon glides instead, and a drag shows an outline. Pairbar never records or saves your screen; the pictures stay in memory for the moment they're needed, and are taken only when the pointer comes near the basket and they're out of date, never while you type. Turn gliding off with Settings → Windows → Animate the basket and swaps; with Reduce Motion on, nothing glides.

Window buttons in the basket

• The basket's own buttons (top-left of the sidebar) act on the whole basket: red goes back to Overlay, yellow minimises both apps and the basket, green fills the screen with the basket.
• Each app's own buttons still work: close or minimise one and its place offers Open Codex or Restore Codex; its green zoom fills the screen with the whole basket; full screen takes that app out of the basket.

Limits

• Claude and Codex won't get narrower than their own minimum width. Pairbar learns it and never makes the basket smaller than both apps allow; if both minimums don't fit side by side on the display, it stacks them (or shows them in Focus) and says why, so they never overlap.
• A window already in macOS full screen is left alone.
• A window on another Space or minimised isn't moved; its place in the basket says what to do. The basket shows only on the Space the apps are on.
• With several windows of one app, Pairbar docks the front one.
• The basket isn't listed in Mission Control. With Stage Manager on it still works, but Stage Manager may move one window into a stage of its own; Pairbar warns, and turning Stage Manager off avoids it.

Troubleshooting

Choosing Basket does nothing

Moving windows needs the Accessibility permission. Pairbar shows how to allow it; after that, choose Basket again.

One app keeps its own sidebar in the basket

Pairbar hides it through the app's View menu item. If a new app version renamed it, the sidebar stays. Check Hide the apps' own sidebars in the basket is on in Settings → Windows.

One app jumped out of the basket

That app went full screen, or Stage Manager moved it to its own stage. Leave full screen (or turn Stage Manager off in Control Centre) and choose Basket again.

Swaps look like plain panes with icons

That's the stand-in used without Screen Recording. Allow it in Settings → Windows → Screen Recording for smoother animation for pictures of the real windows.