System Enable or Disable Double-Click to Maximize Windows Vertically in Windows

WildWilly · Nov 26, 2023

Win+Shift+UpArrow . . . That even works on W7. Learn something every day. I tried double clicking the bottom border of a window on W11 last night. It did nothing. But then, I didn't know this was an option that needed enabling. It appears it's disabled by default on W11. I never enabled or disabled anything on W7 to make it work. But with Win+Shift+UpArrow, I'm not messing with any registry key. I don't care if the double click doesn't work. The keyboard is always preferable to the mouse. By the way, I think it's ridiculously ugly that you have to resort to editing the registry to get this. Is there no place in the GUI for enabling this? No place in the Control Panel or anywhere else?

Now, is there anything that will do the equivalent in the horizontal direction? That is, snap the left & right sides of a window to the left & right sides of the display? I tried Shift+Win+LeftArrow/RightArrow but those just toggle the current window back & forth with the other monitor, assuming you have 2 (or more) monitors. At least, that's what it does on W7. I'll have to try it on W11. I never knew about that one, either. It seems asymmetrical that you can snap the window size vertically but not horizontally.

Brink · Nov 26, 2023

WildWilly said:
Win+Shift+UpArrow . . . That even works on W7. Learn something every day. I tried double clicking the bottom border of a window on W11 last night. It did nothing. But then, I didn't know this was an option that needed enabling. It appears it's disabled by default on W11. I never enabled or disabled anything on W7 to make it work. But with Win+Shift+UpArrow, I'm not messing with any registry key. I don't care if the double click doesn't work. The keyboard is always preferable to the mouse. By the way, I think it's ridiculously ugly that you have to resort to editing the registry to get this. Is there no place in the GUI for enabling this? No place in the Control Panel or anywhere else?

Now, is there anything that will do the equivalent in the horizontal direction? That is, snap the left & right sides of a window to the left & right sides of the display? I tried Shift+Win+LeftArrow/RightArrow but those just toggle the current window back & forth with the other monitor, assuming you have 2 (or more) monitors. At least, that's what it does on W7. I'll have to try it on W11. I never knew about that one, either. It seems asymmetrical that you can snap the window size vertically but not horizontally.

Hello mate,

I'm not aware of another way to snap to the sides like that other than to drag the window to the sides to snap.

Enable or Disable Drag to Snap windows in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable Snap windows by dragging a window to the screen edge for your account in Windows 11. The Snap windows feature in Windows allows you to automatically resize and arrange windows on your screen. One way to Snap windows is to drag a window to...

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Edwin · Nov 26, 2023

WildWilly said:
Now, is there anything that will do the equivalent in the horizontal direction?

Will probably require a 3rd party utility!

Scott · Nov 26, 2023

WildWilly said:
I tried double clicking the bottom border of a window on W11 last night. It did nothing. But then, I didn't know this was an option that needed enabling. It appears it's disabled by default on W11

It's enabled by default, at least it is on my computer. And this is the first I've heard about his feature, thanks @Brink

Scott · Nov 26, 2023

You can always check your registry manually. The SnapSizing key will either be set to 1 (enabled) or 0 (disabled). Mine was set to 1.

WildWilly · Nov 28, 2023

I've got some additional experience with W11 now & I have discovered some rather surprising things. Certain windows accept double click on the bottom edge & they snap to the full height of the display. And some don't. Similarly, some windows accept Win+Shift+UpArrow & they snap to the full height of the display. And some don't. I don't have a lot of data points yet to definitively say when it works & when it doesn't. But one window on which neither technique works is Notepad++. Maybe it's just that application. Maybe things work on tools built into W11 & not on third-party added applications. Maybe maybe maybe. But this is what I have observed so far. It's quite weird.

Win+Shift+UpArrow works a treat on W7.

WildWilly · Dec 2, 2023

My current hypothesis is that Win+Shift+UpArrow works when the window's sides aren't all the way out to the edges of the display. I've had the rather odd experience of one Firefox window taking the key sequence properly, but a few moments later another Firefox window just ignores it. On W7, it seemed to work on every window no matter what. But I won't be able to investigate that any further because I no longer have W7. I've dumped that system & I'm now running W11 exclusively.

WildWilly · Dec 3, 2023

I've done a little fooling around with this. When a window is bang up against the sides of the display, Win+Shift+UpArrow does nothing. Pulling one edge in a bit -- I tried it with the right edge -- suddenly enables the key sequence. I don't think that was how it worked on W7 but I can't check that any more because I've ditched my W7 system now.

WildWilly · Dec 4, 2023

After more experimenting, it seems that if any one of the 4 edges of a window is hard up against its side of the display, Win+Shift+UpArrow doesn't work. If you pull that one edge just a few pixels away from its edge, the key sequence starts working. If you've got 2 or 3 or all 4 edges bang up against a side, you have to move all of the edges. It's very fussy.

johnlgalt · Dec 5, 2023

You should take a look at Microsoft Powertoys for Windows 11.

One of the things it has as a power toy is Fancy Zones, a much more beefier (and much most customizable) version of the Windows Snap Layout features.

One of the images shows a layout in which three apps span a desktop horizontally instead of vertically. It's an animation at the top, so it took me a couple of tries to get it, but here it is:

To get started with Powertoys, see our tutorial on how to install it.

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