Split View: two apps side by side, full screen

Jumping between two windows while transcribing data is a focus killer. Switch windows, find where you left off, type a bit, switch back — each loop costs a few seconds, but they add up to dozens over a day. Split View solves this by keeping both windows visible at once, filling the whole screen.

A typical scenario

An assistant is transcribing numbers from an email order into a spreadsheet. Without Split View, that means: switch to Mail, memorize the line, switch to the spreadsheet, type it in, switch back, check the next line — dozens of switches for a longer order, and with each one, the risk of mistyping a number or transcribing the wrong line grows.

With Split View, both windows sit side by side the whole time. Mail on the left, the spreadsheet on the right — her eyes just move from one side to the other with no extra clicking, and crucially, without losing her place.

How to do it

1. Hover over the green button in the top-left corner of the window you want to use and hold it down (no click, just hold).
2. From the menu, choose Tile Window to Left of Screen or Tile Window to Right of Screen — the window moves to that half of the screen.
3. The rest of the screen shows thumbnails of your other open windows and apps — click the one you want on the other half.
4. Both apps now run side by side, filling the full height of the screen, with no overlap and no need to switch between them.
5. Drag the divider between the windows with the mouse to change the ratio — say, two-thirds for the spreadsheet and a third for Mail.
6. Exit Split View with Esc (while hovering over the green button), or simply drag one of the windows away from its half.
7. If you have more apps open, you can swap out the second window even after Split View is active — just click its half and pick a different app from the thumbnail menu.

The best tools

• Built-in Split View — free, works with every app with no setup, just the green window button.
• Rectangle (a free, open-source tool) — adds keyboard shortcuts for arranging windows, handy when you want to control Split View without the mouse.
• Magnet (a paid App Store app) — a similar feature with a visual layout preview and support for three or more windows at once.
• Stage Manager (a built-in macOS feature) — an alternative for when you want to work with more than two windows and switch between groups of them.

What you get out of it

• Time: less window switching means faster work on anything that requires comparing two sources — transcribing data, proofreading against a reference, following a chat while writing a document.
• Fewer mistakes: with both windows visible at once, it's easier to check that a transcribed number or piece of text actually matches the source.
• Calm: your eyes stay on one screen, with no hunting for "where did that window go" among your other open apps.
• Better use of a large screen: on a widescreen monitor, a single app filling the whole width often leaves a lot of it needlessly empty — Split View splits that space meaningfully between the two things you're actually working on.

Pro tip

Split View remembers a pair of windows as its own desktop (Space) — if you switch away and come back with a three-finger swipe or Control plus an arrow key, both windows will be waiting for you in exactly the layout you left them in.