How to Split the Screen Between Two Windows

Two windows are open and you keep switching back and forth because only one fits on screen at a time. Side by side snapping is already built into Windows, so nothing needs to be installed.

Drag a window to the edge of the screen

Hold the title bar of the first window and drag it against the left or right edge of the display until a translucent outline fills that half, then let go. The window resizes to fill the half by itself.

Pick the second window from the Snap Assist grid

The empty half fills with thumbnails of everything else that is open. Click the one you want and the pair fills the screen. Press Esc to dismiss the grid and leave the other half as it was.

Snap with the keyboard instead

Click the window to select it, then press Windows + Left arrow or Windows + Right arrow. While it is snapped to a side, press Windows + Up arrow or Windows + Down arrow to shrink it into a quarter of the screen.

Choose an arrangement from the maximize button

Hover the pointer over the maximize button in the top right corner of a window, or press Windows + Z, and a grid of Snap Layouts appears: halves, thirds, quarters, and a wide zone next to a narrow one. Click the zone the current window should take, then fill the remaining zones from the thumbnails. This hover menu is Windows 11 only.

Resize the two windows

Point at the divider between the snapped windows until the pointer turns into a double arrow, then drag it. Both windows resize together, so one grows as the other shrinks.

Turn snapping on or off

Go to Settings, System, Multitasking, and open Snap windows. The top switch turns snapping off completely. The checkboxes under it control the parts separately, including whether the thumbnail grid appears and whether hovering the maximize button shows layouts.

Snapped pairs are remembered. Windows saves a side by side pair as a Snap Group. Hover the taskbar icon of either window and the group shows as one thumbnail, so a single click brings both back after working in something else.

On Windows 10. Dragging to an edge, the thumbnail grid, and the Windows + Left arrow shortcuts all work the same way. Windows 10 has no Snap Layouts hover menu and no Snap Groups, so quarters have to be built with the arrow keys or by dragging into a corner.