A Mac window switcher with previews

No. Contexts is a text list of window and app names, filtered as you type, with no thumbnails anywhere in the interface. Here, every window is a real picture of what is on screen, so you recognize it by sight rather than by reading its title, which matters most once several windows share a similar name, like three Chrome windows with the same app icon.

No. Contexts lists windows and apps by name, so a browser with twenty tabs open is one line of text. Here, every tab in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi and Opera is a card of its own, and search matches the website behind a tab, so you can find a Google Docs tab without remembering which window you left it in.

Its last release is dated August 2022, four years before this comparison was checked. The vendor states support only up to macOS Sequoia and makes no mention of macOS 26 Tahoe. It still runs, but it has not shipped an update in years, and that matters more the longer you keep it. Better Window Switcher is built and tested against macOS 26 today.

For the window you use all day, both are instant: a quick tap of the shortcut here flips straight to your last window with nothing drawn on screen at all. Where the two differ is everything else. One keystroke opens the scene, typing filters it, and search matches the website behind a browser tab as well as the app name and the window title.

Contexts is 9.99 USD once, and Better Window Switcher is 19.99 USD once for two Macs, so neither is a subscription. What the difference buys is a picture of every window instead of a list of names, browser tabs as their own cards, seven 3D arrangements, and an app being built and tested against macOS 26 Tahoe rather than left at its 2022 release.

No. Since Contexts is a text list rather than a set of pictures, it does not need Screen Recording access at all, only the usual Accessibility permission most switchers use to focus a window. Better Window Switcher needs Screen Recording too, because every card it shows is a real picture of that window. It captures while the switcher is open and never continuously in the background.

It shows you the windows rather than their names. Every card is a real picture, arranged in one of seven 3D shapes you orbit with the trackpad. Browser tabs get their own cards with the real site icon, search matches the website behind a tab, and with a file already in hand you can carry it to a window you could not otherwise reach.

Yes. Every feature is unlocked for seven days with no account and no card, and there is a 14 day money back guarantee after that if you decide it is not for you, so trying it costs nothing but the time it takes to open it and see whether the scene actually suits how you work day to day, next to Contexts itself.