How to Do a Split Screen on Windows and Mac

Article Summary 

• Split view on Mac: On this type of computer, it is accessed via the green button in the top-left corner of any window. Hover over it to tile your apps to either side.
• Windows snap feature: This lets you drag a window to the edge of the screen or use keyboard shortcuts to snap windows side by side.
• How to split screen in Windows 11: Windows 11 adds Snap Layouts via the maximize button, offering preset layout options and showing you how to split screen.
• Mac split view shortcut: This shortcut runs through Mission Control. To access the shortcut, swipe up with three or four fingers or press Control + Up Arrow to access it.
• Split screen not working: Mac Split screen not working is usually caused by an incompatible app or the “Displays have separate Spaces” setting being turned off, while Windows split screen not working most often means Snap is disabled in the Multitasking settings.

When you’ve got a browser open, a document open, and you’re copying something from one into the other, do you know what could help? A split screen. If you didn’t know split screens existed, you do now, and they can make life on your Mac or Windows PC so much easier. But how do you get it working? Well, our team has put together this guide teaching you how to split-screen on Windows and Mac. So, here’s how it works on each.

What Is Split Screen?

Split screen is a built-in feature that divides your display between two apps so neither one covers the other. Each window takes up its own half, and you can work in both without constantly minimizing and reopening things.

Both Mac and Windows include this without any extra setup, so there’s nothing to download or configure before you start. The only real difference between the two is how you get it working.

How to Do Split Screen on Mac

How to do split screen on MacBook…this is what you’ve likely caught yourself muttering a time or two, especially since learning about this feature. 

Luckily, it’s a feature that isn’t as difficult to access as you may think. In fact, can you see that green dot in the top left corner of every window? Most people click it straight away to go full screen, but if you hold your cursor over it instead, a small menu appears with the tiling options.

You’ll see the choice to move the window to the left side of the screen or the right. Pick one, and that window slides into place. The other half of the screen fills with thumbnails of everything else you have open, and whichever one you click takes the remaining space. Apple calls this split view Mac, and it runs as its own desktop space, separate from everything else you’ve got going. 

Customizing Split View on Mac

Once you’re working in split-screen mode on a Mac, the divider between the two windows is something you can customize. You can grab it and drag it left or right, depending on how much space each app needs. If you’re working in a wide spreadsheet on one side and just need a narrow reference window on the other, a quick drag sorts that out.

Additionally, switching which app sits on which side is as simple as dragging a window across to the opposite half. If you need a different app in the layout entirely, hovering over the green button again brings up the “Replace Tiled Window” option so you can swap one out. 

Then, when you’re ready to leave Split View, move your cursor to the top of the screen, click the green button on either window, and that app disappears, and your desktop goes back to normal. 

Helpful Mac Controls

There are some really useful Mac controls you can still use during split screen. Once Split View is active, macOS hides a few controls to give the two windows more room on the screen, but they are still easy to reach. 

The menu bar and the Dock don’t vanish in Split View; they just stay out of the way until you need them. Slide your cursor to the top edge of the screen, and the menu bar appears. Move it down toward the bottom, and the Dock comes up. Both work exactly as they normally would, so you’re not cut off from anything while you’re in the split layout.

Then, to see everything you have running, Mission Control gives you the full picture. The Mac split view shortcut to get there is a three or four-finger swipe up on the trackpad, or pressing Control plus Up Arrow on the keyboard. 

Your Split View pair appears as a single space at the top of the screen. From there, you can either return to the split layout or separate the apps again if you no longer need them side by side. If you want to pull one app back to your main desktop without touching the other, the green button has a “Move Window to Desktop” option that handles it. Easy peasy.

How to Do Split Screen on Windows

How to split screen on Windows is a question we hear often, almost as much as how to split screen on Windows 10. With both, splitting the screen skips the menu entirely. 

That’s right, there is no need to open a separate menu. You drag the window where you want it, and Windows takes care of the rest.

All you need to do is click and hold the title bar of any open window, drag it to the left or right edge of your screen, and a faint outline appears showing you where it’ll land. Release it, and the window locks into that half. Windows then brings up thumbnails of your other open apps so you can click one to fill the other side. 

The windows snap feature also conveniently handles the sizing on its own, so you don’t end up with one window twice the size of the other. 

Using Keyboard Shortcuts on Windows

If the mouse isn’t your preference mid-task, the keyboard gets you there just as fast when you know the right shortcuts in split screen. 

For example, Windows key plus Left Arrow snaps the active window to the left half of the screen. On the other hand, Windows key plus Right Arrow sends it to the right. Windows then steps in with the app picker, which shows the set of open windows so you can choose what fills the other side, letting you fill the second half without touching the trackpad.

On Windows 11, throwing the Up or Down Arrow into the mix lets you push windows into the corners of the screen, which means you can snap windows side by side and still fit two more apps above and below them. On a wide monitor, that’s four apps on screen at once without any of them sitting on top of each other. The left and right shortcuts work on Windows 10 as well, though the corner placement came later with Windows 11.

Snap Layouts in Windows 11

Windows 11 includes an extra option that speeds up the snap layout process. Hover your cursor over the maximize button on any window, and a small panel appears showing a set of pre-built screen arrangements. Two equal halves, one wide panel with one narrow, a three-column split, and a couple of grid setups are all in there.

Click the section you want your current window to occupy, and Windows walks you through the rest, asking you to assign an app to each remaining section. 

Usually, opening two windows side by side is the most common choice, but three- and four-section layouts are used regularly by people who keep a browser, a document, a messaging app, and a task list all running at the same time.

Final Thoughts on How to Open Windows Side By Side and Mac Too

Split screen tends to be one of those things people put off trying until they’ve wasted enough time clicking between windows that it no longer seems worth ignoring. Once you’ve used it for a day or two, going back to stacking windows on top of each other doesn’t make much sense anymore.

As you now know, both Mac and Windows make it available without any extra setup, and neither takes more than a few seconds to get going once you know where to look. 

If you run into trouble and are still asking, ‘Why won’t split screen work on Mac or Windows?’ our help center is a good first stop. Should you be unable to find what you’re looking for there, give us a call, and we will help teach you how to fix split-screen window issues or macOS problems. 

And if something more stubborn is going on with your machine, My Computer Works can help with that, too.