Windows 11 introduced a major upgrade to window management called “Snap Layouts.” If you hover your mouse cursor over the maximize button in the top-right corner of any application window, a large, interactive grid pops up. This grid allows you to easily snap the current window into a specific corner or half of your screen.
While this is an excellent feature for ultrawide monitor setups, it can be incredibly irritating if you use a smaller screen or if you naturally rest your mouse cursor in the top-right corner of your display. Every time your mouse brushes past the maximize button, the massive layout grid violently blocks the top section of your application, interrupting your reading or clicking. If you prefer to manually drag your windows to the edge of the screen to snap them (the classic Windows 10 method), or use keyboard shortcuts (Win + Arrow Keys), you can completely disable the intrusive hover menu.
Disabling the Snap Layouts Hover Menu via Settings
Microsoft allows you to fine-tune exactly how the window snapping features behave, including completely turning off the hover pop-up.
- 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.
- You will see a master toggle switch for Snap windows. Do not turn this off! (Turning off the master switch will break the ability to drag windows to the edge of the screen).
- Instead, click on the small down-arrow to the right of the “Snap windows” toggle to expand the advanced options.
- Look through the expanded list of checkboxes for the setting labelled Show snap layouts when I hover over a window’s maximize button.
- Click the checkbox to uncheck it.
- (Optional: If you also hate it when you drag a window to the top edge of the screen and a black bar drops down offering layouts, uncheck the box labelled Show snap layouts when I drag a window to the top of my screen as well).
The changes take effect immediately. Close the Settings app and test it by hovering your mouse over any maximize button. The intrusive grid menu will be completely gone. You can still snap windows by dragging them to the physical edges of your monitor, but the UI will no longer pop up and block your view.