The Magnetized Edges
Windows 11 features a window management system called “Snap Assist.” If you click the title bar of a web browser and drag it anywhere near the left or right edge of your screen, an invisible magnetic force grabs the window, violently resizes it, and snaps it to fill exactly half of your monitor. While helpful for some, this feature is infuriating if you simply want to manually arrange overlapping windows or push a window slightly off-screen to monitor a background process. If you want total, unassisted control over exactly where your windows sit on the desktop, you must completely disable the snapping engine.
How to Turn Off Window Snapping
You can completely sever the magnetic window edges via the system multitasking settings.
- Click the Start Menu and type Settings, or press the Windows Key + I.
- In the left-hand sidebar, click on System.
- In the main window, click on Multitasking.
- Look at the very top of the window for the master toggle switch labeled Snap windows.
- Toggle this switch to the Off position.
Free-Floating Windows
The change is absolute and instantaneous. You can now click the title bar of an application and drag it aggressively into any corner or edge of your monitor. The operating system will completely ignore the gesture. The window will not maximize, it will not snap to half-size, and it will remain exactly the size and shape you manually set it to, giving you total freedom to arrange your desktop however you see fit.