This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable Magnifier to zoom each display independently for your account in Windows 11.
Magnifier makes part or all of your screen bigger so you can see words and images better.
You can change the Magnifier zoom level to choose how much Magnifier enlarges the screen when turned on.
Starting with Windows 11 build 26340.9354 (Experimental 26H2) for Insiders, Magnifier now understands each of your displays. Every screen keeps its own view at its own zoom. In earlier versions of Magnifier, zooming in stretched a single magnified view across all of your displays, so one screen's zoom followed you everywhere and screen edges blurred together. With this update, each monitor's boundary is respected, and each monitor can have its own zoom percentage. Your writing screen can be at 300% while your reference screen stays at 150%, and the magnified view no longer spills from one display into the next. This behavior matters because different tasks and screen resolutions often require different levels of magnification to remain comfortable to read.
Setting the zoom on each screen is easy. Choose whichever method feels natural:
- Move your mouse pointer onto the screen you want to adjust, then press Windows key + Plus (+) or Windows key + Minus (-), or hold Ctrl + Alt and rotate your mouse wheel.
- Set the percentages directly in Accessibility > Magnifier.
- Drag the Magnifier toolbar onto a specific screen to adjust that screen from its on-screen controls.
- As you move your mouse from screen to screen, the magnified view naturally follows your pointer. Sometimes this might cause you to lose sight of the content that you're actively working on.
- Viewport locking keeps that view in place. For example, you might be drafting an email based on a section of a document open on another display. Position that display so the paragraph you need is in view, press Ctrl + Windows key + K, and the screen holds its view steady while you move your cursor over to write. The locked screen stays fully live and interactive, so you can glance back, click, or copy from it whenever you need to, and its view stays put until you release it.
- A message appears on the screen when it's locked, so you always know what's being held. To lock or unlock a screen, point your mouse at that screen and press Ctrl + Windows key + K again. To release everything at once, press Windows key + Esc to dismiss all locks. You can change the lock shortcut to Ctrl + Alt + P in Accessibility > Magnifier.
To use Magnifier zoom per display, you will need to set your monitors to Extend, not Duplicate, so Windows treats each screen as its own space.
Contents
- Option One: Turn On or Off Magnifier Zoom per Display from Magnifier toolbar
- Option Two: Turn On or Off Magnifier Zoom per Display in Settings
- Option Three: Turn On or Off Magnifier Zoom per Display using REG file
1 Open Magnifier (
+ Plus).2 Click/tap on the Settings (gear) button on the Magnifier toolbar. (see screenshot below)
3 Turn on (default) of off Zoom per display for what you want.
1 Open Settings (Win+I).
2 Click/tap on Accessibility on the left side, and click/tap on Magnifier on the right side. (see screenshot below)
3 Under Multiple display controls, turn on (default) of off Zoom each display independently for what you want. (see screenshot below)
4 You can now close Settings if you like.
1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do.
2 Turn On Magnifier Zoom per Display
This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.
Turn_ON_Magnifier_zoom_each_display_independently.reg
Download
(Contents of REG file for reference)
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ScreenMagnifier]
"MultiMonitorZoom"=dword:000000013 Turn Off Magnifier Zoom per Display
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.
Turn_OFF_Magnifier_zoom_each_display_independently.reg
Download
(Contents of REG file for reference)
Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ScreenMagnifier]
"MultiMonitorZoom"=dword:000000004 Save the .reg file to your desktop.
5 If you have Smart App Control turned on, you will need to unblock the downloaded REG file.
6 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.
7 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.
8 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.
That's it,
Shawn Brink
