Windows, tabs, groups. If you’re used to these ways of organizing your web page viewing, get used to one more: split view.

This common feature is now also available in Chrome, so learn how to use it and why you might want to.

What is Split View?

Chrome’s new split view offers another way to organize your browsing of multiple websites. Alongside the traditional windows and tabs, it’s a third type of layout with unique behavior.

Much like Split View in macOS and others, this feature uses a tiling layout to show two equal views horizontally: one on the left, one on the right. In Chrome’s case, of course, those views are web pages—or anything else you can view in Chrome, like images, videos, or PDFs.

Although split view has been around to preview and try out since the end of 2025, it launched officially in February 2026. If you’re on Chrome version 145 or later, you should have access to this feature. If not, just update Chrome, and you’ll get access to it.

Begin by splitting a tab in two

For such a simple feature, there are many nuances to split view, including how to initiate it. This mainly depends on what you’re doing when you decide to enter split view, but I’ve found the quickest and most useful option is to split the current page with a link on it. To do so, simply right-click on a link that you want to open alongside the current page, then select “Open Link in Split View.”

You’ll now see both pages, side-by-side, with the new page active. That active page’s URL will show in the normal place, while the previous page’s address displays in the bottom-right of its half. Notice also that a new toolbar icon will appear, with some useful options to reverse the split, close either page, or switch the order.

The other change you might notice is in the tab bar. Any split views you have open are represented here, much as individual tabs are, but a bit closer together to emphasize their connection. Each view retains its icon and title, and close icons are available for each once the tab is selected.

More things you can do with split view

Since split view is a new feature, we expect it to be refined in future releases, so these options may change or disappear.

Alternative ways to split

Chrome’s split view offers a couple more ways to get started, both involving an existing tab. You can either:

• Right-click the tab and select “Add tab to new split view.” This will open the tab in the left half of a new split view, with an option to select another tab to display alongside it.
• Drag a tab away from the tab bar, onto either the left or right of your screen. You’ll see an option to enter split view alongside the next most recently viewed tab.

These two methods are great for organizing existing tabs that you want to group, but they can be a bit awkward. The latter, in particular, won’t be available if the previous tab was already in split view, so you may have to experiment a bit to get used to it.

How to navigate

You can select an individual page in split view by clicking on it directly; the parts of the tab itself that represent each page are not individually clickable. For the most part, however, you can get by without doing so, since each view is scrollable without selecting it.

If, like me, you’re a keyboard navigator, you’ll find everything works as you’d expect: press Ctrl (+ Shift) + Tab to cycle through tabs, and you’ll cycle through any split views as you go.

Each view has its own menu in the bottom-right corner, which duplicates the functions of the main toolbar icon.

Resizing the views

Split view divides the horizontal space equally, by default, but you can change the ratio by hovering over the central space and dragging it left/right to resize. As you drag toward the center, the layout will snap at exactly the halfway point, making it easy to achieve a perfect balance.

As a bonus, double-clicking this central area will swap each half around, maintaining the current size. I think it’s a slight shame that the overall layout maintains its size, rather than each page remaining consistent, but this can still be useful in a 50/50 view.

How split view can improve your everyday browsing

The main advantage of split view, over any similar feature your OS may provide, is how well it integrates with the browser. Split view appears just like any other tab, so you can have many alongside each other, arrange them however you like, and navigate them in a familiar way. On macOS, for example, it’s much quicker to arrange two web pages side-by-side using split view than the OS equivalent, which requires two separate windows in the first place.

Split view is great for sites that contain many links you might want to check out in quick succession: think something like Hacker News or a search engine results page. Once you’re in split view, you can open links from one half in the other by right-clicking and selecting “Open link in right/left view.”