Windows has plenty of different ways to improve your productivity and simple tricks you can use to make life easier. One is split screening so you can keep Windows side-by-side and jump between apps, browsers and more with ease.
There’s more to these tools than you might realise though, including multi-desktop options, Snap Layouts and app groupings too.
So stick with us as we guide you through the various split screen options and how to use them.
How to snap apps in Windows
Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 offer the ability to “snap” applications which is essentially making them stick to one part of the screen and automatically fit a certain size so you can then snap other apps in different positions and create a side-by-side split-screen layout.
This is remarkably easy to do and really intuitive once you get the hang of it:
This action should then have snapped the application to one side of your screen. you’re able to then drag another application to the other side of the screen in the same way and that will snap it to the other side so both apps are side-by-side in a split screen view.
If while doing this you find that the application you’ve dragged has shrunk to a quarter of its normal size, then congratulations you have discovered another way to split-screen. If you want four apps, one in each corner, then follow these steps:
If you want to avoid this then be sure to drag the application to themiddleof the side of your screen.
How to resize split-screen windows
When you have put windows into a split-screen view it’s possible to resize them still. It might be that you want one window to be bigger than the other. That’s easy to do as well.
With the applications, side-by-side put your cursor in the middle and you’ll see the resize icon appear. Click it and drag it in either direction. This will shrink one window and enlarge the other one. Do this until you’re happy with the size of each window.
Quick snapping with shortcuts
With Windows keyboard shortcuts it’s even easier to quickly snap applications and create a split-screen view.
Follow these steps to quick snap apps:
There are other shortcuts that are useful here to:
If you have a dual or triple monitor setup you can keep pressing Win + left/right arrow to move an application across each screen until it’s in the right position.
How to use Snap Layouts in Windows 11
With Windows 11 Microsoft has made it even easier to multi-task and split screen with various windows easily.
Snap Layouts is a special feature that makes the process even easier:
This gives you various options on the size and position of your apps. Whether that’s two apps side-by-side or one large one with two smaller ones.
Optimised Snap Groups
With Windows 11 there’s also the benefit of so-called Snap Groups. This is where Windows recognises that you’ve been using two (or more) apps side-by-side and intelligently groups them together.
When you’ve done this, if you hover over the relevant app in the task bar (e.g. Edge in the screenshot above) you’ll see some icons appear with the app seperated in option to maximise it (bring it to the foreground) on its own or to bring it to the front as a group.
This is handy because if you’re working on a couple of apps in a split-screen layout then have to click on another app for some reason for a few minutes but want to then jump back into the group you can do so with ease. This means you don’t have to click on two apps again individually but can simply bring the group of apps back to the foreground.
