Chromebook Virtual Desks set to get another massive upgrade with drag-and-drop

Virtual Desks on Chrome OS are on fire right now. We recently shared a video highlighting some new features that are already usable in the Developer Channel of Chrome OS, but there is another big upgrade coming that will go a long way towards helping users get the exact desk setup they are looking for with as little hassle as possible.

That’s right, drag-and-drop is on the way for Virtual Desks in addition to the other features we’ve already highlighted like 8 total desks, new ALT-TAB options, and the ability to quickly assign open windows to a specific desk. I don’t know about you, but after having my desks set up, I tend to re-prioritize what I want as my most-nearby desk pretty frequently. Some days, I need my main desk and messages nearby. Other days it’s the creative tools I’d rather have close. Other days it’s my IDE. Right now I just go with it and make due, swiping a bit more on certain days than others. After all, I don’t want to fully reorganize my desks just because the Discord chat is particularly busy that day. In the future, this won’t be an issue as I’ll be able to drag, drop and reorganize my desks on the fly.

While this feature isn’t rolled out just yet, it is clearly on display in the Chromium Bug Tracker and is accompanied with some video of it in action. We dropped it down below, but from the looks of this demonstration, the drag-and-drop abilities of Virtual Desks is quite a ways along and, hopefully, ready to join the party along with the other features we’ve already highlighted once the developers are ready to push these changes to the Stable Channel of Chrome OS.

All the new additions coming to Virtual Desks are exciting, but I think this is the #1 feature I’m ready for. I love more desks and I love the new 4-finger gesture animations to switch through desks, but I think the ability to quickly rearrange my set up desks as needed as the day progresses will bring a level of customization I’ve been waiting for that will take this great feature from useful to indisposable for me. If this ends up merged into the current Developer build of Chrome OS 89, I’d hope we may get this upgrade along with all the others some time in March of 2021. I can’t wait!