How to: Use Snap Layouts and Snap groups in Windows 11 - Article

Question

Windows 11 comes with numerous multitasking improvements, one of the best being Snap layouts and Snap groups. This article explains how to utilize Snap Layouts and Snap Groups in Windows 11.

How to use Snap Layouts in Windows 11

Snap layouts in action - Picture credits https://blogs.windows.com/

https://youtu.be/q5egaM2hibs?t=685

The new Snap layouts feature focus is to increase user's productivity, which helps to arrange or snap the apps logically on the screen according to the user choice. This is particularly helpful when the user has a bigger, or widescreen, and has multiple applications open as per the requirement. To invoke snap layouts, on the active Window, either press Windows key+Z or hover over the maximize button. In the earlier releases of Windows, the user had to drag the app to the edge of the screen to activate the snapping feature.

On traditional displays, you would see four layout choices and for ultrawide screens, you would see six layout choices.

To select the app's location, click the mouse button in the desired layout to snap the first active app to that part of the screen. When the first app is snapped, Snap Assist would show up, asking you to select the app you want to snap on the second layout. After the second, choose the app to the 3rd layout(if you selected that layout) and so on.

(In the Picture - snap assist on the right when Hyper-V is snapped on the left)

Snap groups:

So after using Snap groups to snap your work apps, let us say you want to take a break, and want to use Focus sessions on the Clock app. This is where the snap group feature comes in handy. You can pick up where you left off and can open the layout with a single click. In the taskbar, it displays the title as 'Group'.

Snap Group having 2 apps grouped

To summarize, Snap groups remember the layouts used when multiple apps have been snapped mutually into a group using the Snap Layouts feature so that you can quickly resume where you left off.

Coming Soon

In Windows Insider Builds 22557 and later**, Microsoft has introduced a new way to invoke Snap layouts.** Simply drag a window to the top of the screen to reveal the snap layouts, drop the window onto a zone to snap it, and use Snap Assist to complete building your layout.

How to turn off Snap Flyouts

If this feature is not relevant to you, Microsoft has also provided an option in Windows 11 to disable specific settings related to Snapping in the Settings app. To turn off Snap layouts:

1. Open Settings>System.

Navigate to Multi-tasking.

Turn off the settings you like, under snapping.

Also read:

Windows 11 multitasking features to help you be more productive than ever before

Windows 11 review - Your Windows Guide