How to try out the new window-snapping overview feature on your Chromebook

Two of my favorite productivity tools built right into ChromeOS and into the Chromebook you may own are the wildly-useful overview mode and window-snapping feature. On their own, these abilities give Chromebook users a way to see all their open windows in a quick glance and help them arrange those windows in a multitude of ways with easy, understandable snapping positions.

Both have long been a staple of Chromebooks, and with a click of the overview button (up there in your function key row) or a swipe up with 3 fingers on your trackpad, you can easily see all your open windows in any of your desks. Additionally, grabbing those windows from the standard or overview models, you can drag them to either side of the screen to get a perfect 50/50 window size or hover the resize button in the top-right of the window to select from quite a few other options.

Overview Mode and Window Snapping join forces

But now, in ChromeOS 120 (currently the Beta Channel), you can actually turn on a flag that enables these two features to work together for an even cooler workflow that is not just fun to use, but wildly useful as well (first found by our friend @cr_c2cv on X). That’s right, with the #ash-faster-split-screen-setup flag switched on (head to chrome://flags), you’ll get an auto-overview the moment you use ChromeOS’ new window snap tools. Check out the video below to see it in action:

Like we see with most tablet UIs these days, this basically jams two actions into one and it makes total sense when you stop to think about it. The moment you go to snap a window to either side of the screen, you generally aren’t doing so just to leave empty space next to it. Instead, you are likely planning on opening up a window right next to it to get something done, and now hunting for that other window is a few seconds faster since you automatically see all your open stuff the moment you snap a window. It makes so much sense!

I’ve had this on for about a week now, and the funny thing is, I’m having a hard time considering it not being part of my new workflow. Sometimes new features take a bit of time to get used to, but I almost forgot that ChromeOS doesn’t just do this already. As far as new changes to the OS go, this is one I hope the ChromeOS team implements right away. There’s no real downside to it, and I think a lot of users will find great worth in it once it trickles down to Stable without a flag.