In Windows 11, if you drag an application window to the far left or right edge of your monitor, the operating system will snap that window to fill exactly half the screen. Immediately after doing this, Windows aggressively pops up a “Snap Assist” grid on the empty half of your screen. This grid displays large thumbnail previews of every other open application you have running, aggressively prompting you to click one to fill the remaining space.
While this is visually helpful for users who do not know how to manage their own windows, it is a massive interruption for power users. If you are quickly snapping a chat window to the left side of your screen while reading a document in the background, the Snap Assist grid will violently pop up and completely block the document you were trying to read. If you prefer to snap your windows independently and want your desktop background to remain clean and undisturbed, you must completely disable the Snap Assist popup.
Disabling the Snap Assist Grid via Settings
Microsoft allows you to keep the core window snapping functionality (dragging to edges or using Win + Arrow keys) while completely killing the intrusive suggestion grid.
- Click the Start button and select the Settings gear icon (or press Windows Key + i).
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, ensure you are on the System tab.
- In the main panel, click on Multitasking.
- At the very top, you will see the master toggle switch for Snap windows. Do not turn this off! (Turning off the master switch entirely breaks the ability to snap windows to the edge of the screen).
- Instead, click on the small down-arrow to the right of the “Snap windows” toggle switch to expand the advanced sub-settings.
- Look through the expanded list of checkboxes for the setting labelled When I snap a window, show what I can snap next to it.
- Click the checkbox to uncheck it.
The changes take effect immediately. Close the Settings app and test it by dragging an application to the right edge of your monitor. The window will snap perfectly to the right half of the screen, but the left half will remain completely undisturbed, allowing you to manually manage your remaining windows without visual interference.