How to View Two Tabs Side by Side in Chrome
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Edge has a native split-screen button. Chrome doesn't — there's no menu option, no keyboard shortcut, no setting that puts two tabs in one window side by side. What Chrome does have is two separate windows and an operating system that's good at positioning them, which gets you the same result with one extra step.
Pop a tab into its own window
Right-click the tab you want on one side and choose "Move tab to new window." Chrome creates a new window containing just that tab. (Dragging the tab off the tab strip onto empty desktop space does the same thing.)
You now have two Chrome windows: the original, and the one you just split off.
Snap the two windows to opposite halves
This part is your operating system, not Chrome:
- Windows: drag a window's title bar to the left or right edge of the screen until an outline appears, then release — or select the window and press
Win+Left Arrow/Win+Right Arrow. Repeat for the second window on the opposite side. - macOS: drag a window's title bar to the left or right edge of the screen; modern macOS versions show a snap zone and resize it automatically. Hover over the green maximize button for a tiling menu on newer macOS releases.
- Linux (GNOME/KDE/most desktops): drag to a screen edge, or use the standard tiling shortcut for your desktop environment (often
Super+Left/Super+Right).
Once both windows are snapped, you effectively have Chrome's missing split-screen — two tabs, fully visible, side by side, each behaving as a completely normal Chrome window.
Undo it
Drag either window's title bar away from the screen edge to un-snap it, or drag the popped-out tab back onto the original window's tab strip to merge it in again.
Where this approach runs out
Two-window snapping works well for two tabs. It gets awkward fast beyond that:
- A third tab means resizing windows into a manual grid, or reaching for a third-party tiling tool (Rectangle, PowerToys FancyZones, or a Linux tiling window manager).
- Snapped windows don't remember each other. Close one, reopen Chrome, and you're setting the layout up from scratch — Chrome doesn't save "these two tabs were snapped together" as a state.
- It only solves seeing two tabs at once, not finding a specific tab again later once you've stopped needing them side by side.
If what you actually needed was to compare two tabs once and then get back to a manageable browser, Amazing Tabs covers the part snapping doesn't:
- Save both tabs to a space once you're done comparing them, instead of leaving two windows open indefinitely.
- Press
⌘K(orCtrl+K) to pull either one back up instantly, by title or content, whenever you need the comparison again. - Free for up to 100 saved links, with cross-device sync available on paid plans.
Compare tabs side by side, then save what mattered. Add Amazing Tabs to Chrome — free, no signup required.
Quick recap
- Chrome has no native split-tab view — Edge does, Chrome doesn't.
- Right-click a tab → "Move tab to new window" to pop it out on its own.
- Snap the two windows to opposite screen halves using your OS's window-snapping (drag to edge, or
Win+Left/Right Arrowon Windows). - Beyond two tabs, manual resizing or a third-party tiling tool is required — Chrome doesn't do grids.
- For moving tabs between windows without snapping, see How to Move Tabs Between Chrome Windows; for reordering within one window, see How to Reorder Tabs in Chrome.
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FAQ
Does Chrome have a split-screen or side-by-side tab view?
No. Unlike Edge's split-screen feature, Chrome has no built-in way to show two tabs in one window side by side. The workaround is popping one tab into its own window and snapping the two windows to opposite halves of the screen.
How do I put two tabs side by side in Chrome?
Right-click one tab and choose "Move tab to new window" (or drag it to empty desktop space) to give it its own window. Then drag that window's title bar to the left edge of your screen and the original window's title bar to the right edge — on Windows, macOS, and most Linux desktops, this snaps each window to fill half the screen.
Is there a keyboard shortcut for window snapping?
On Windows, Win+Left Arrow and Win+Right Arrow snap the active window to that half of the screen. On macOS (Sonoma and later), drag a window to the screen edge to trigger Stage Manager-style snapping, or use a window-manager shortcut if you have one installed. Chrome itself doesn't provide a snap shortcut — this is an OS-level feature that works on any window, including Chrome's.
Can I split a single Chrome window into two panes without opening a second window?
No — Chrome doesn't support in-window split panes the way some code editors or Edge's split-screen feature do. Every side-by-side setup in Chrome requires two separate windows positioned next to each other.
What if I need to compare more than two tabs at once?
Snapping works for two windows at a time on most operating systems. For three or more, resize windows manually into a grid, or use a third-party window-tiling tool (Rectangle on Mac, PowerToys FancyZones on Windows, or a tiling window manager on Linux) to lay out more than two panes.
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