Today’s post highlights a feature called Snap that’s been around since Windows 7, but unless someone has pointed it out or you stumbled into it accidentally, you may not know it exists. I recently realized it’s one of my favorite things about using Windows.
I have two monitors at work, but certain workflows go more smoothly when I can see three or four different windows at once. Sure, you can click or Alt+Tab between windows, but seeing and comparing multiple windows at once would be even better. Windows uses a feature called “Snap” to do that.
What Is Snap?
Snap allows you to arrange and resize Windows quickly and easily. You can do this with a mouse or keyboard, and you can select a standard window layout or create your own.
This feature has been available to users since Windows 7, and it has improved a bit over time.
Drag to Snap
Click on the top of the window you would like to move first and drag it until you see the screen change:
- To the side edge to fill that half the screen
- To the corner to fill that quarter of the screen
- To the top of the screen to select a premade layout from the menu that appears
If you have other windows open when you snap, the remaining area of the screen shows thumbnail images that let you choose a window to fill the rest of the screen.
You can also drag the bottom of a window to the bottom of the screen to maximize the window vertically.
Snap with Keyboard Shortcuts
You can also use the Windows logo key 
+ arrow keys to snap the app you are currently using. Start by pressing and holding the Windows logo key, then press:
- Left Arrow to snap the app to the left half of the screen
- Right Arrow to snap the app to the right half of the screen
- Up Arrow to snap the app to the upper half of the screen
- Down Arrow to snap the app to the lower half of the screen.
Then release the Windows logo key.
Snap to a Premade Layout
The premade layouts are handy if you want to snap more than two windows. To use them, drag your window to the top center of the screen. A set of five layouts will appear.
Drag your cursor to one of the boxes on one of the layouts and then let go of the mouse button to put your window in that spot on that layout. Snap assist will then offer thumbnails of other windows for you to put in the remaining spot(s).
Here is a video to demonstrate:
Snap Flyout
Until I researched this article, I wasn’t aware of the flyout feature. If your window is not maximized (covering the full screen), you can hover over the maximize symbol in the top right of the window to reveal layouts. After that, it works just like dragging the window to the top of the screen.
Resizing Windows
After you have snapped windows, you can resize them to change how much of the screen they take up. Hover your cursor over the border between two windows. When the cursor changes to arrows, drag the border to resize.
Snap Groups
This is another feature that surprised me. If you created a snapped layout and then opened a different app on top of it, you can quickly return to the snapped group of windows.
Hover over an app in the group in the taskbar, and two thumbnail images will display. One image shows just that app, and the other shows the snapped group. Click on the snapped group to return to that view.
Summary
Snapping in Windows is a powerful, but easily overlooked, feature in all Windows installations. Using it can significantly reduce the time you spend manually switching between windows.
