Despite its name, Windows 11 is not always the best at window management, at least not without some help. I've long been a fan of PowerToys for giving me so much more flexibility when it comes to managing my open windows to improve my productivity with FancyZones, but the way snapping works may not be for everyone.

Recently, though, Microsoft added another feature that makes window management even easier, and it's frankly game-changing. It's called Grab and Move, and it should be a feature on every single computer.

Drag windows no matter what

Who needs title bars anyway?

The name Grab and Move kind of gives the main gimmick of this tool away, but that doesn't make it any less useful. Typically, to drag and and move a window, you need to click it on the title bar, which brings it to the forefront and lets you drag the window over others as you please. Some apps may have custom title bars, though, which can make dragging less practical, or at least less predictable. So what if you didn't have to depend on title bars?

That's the question Grab and Move tries to answer, and frankly, it's a perfect answer. Using this tool, all you need to do is hold a modifier key (which is Alt by default), and then all you need to do is click anywhere on the window to start dragging it around. This can greatly reduce the time wasted trying to click the right area of the window to properly drag it. A great example of this is PowerToys' own Command Palette tool, which is a launch bar without a title bar. There's a small sliver of the window that can be used for dragging, but there's no clear visual indicator of it, and it's kind of hard to hit. Grab and Move makes it completely trivial.

Plus, there's another thing — using Grab and Move, you can also drag windows that aren't currently focused without shifting the focus to them. Windows will be moved while keeping their current position on the stack, so they move behind other windows that may be on top of them. It's a small benefit, but a welcome one.

Even resizing works

No more hunting for window edges

Moving windows is probably the most useful part of this tool, but it can actually do something more: resize windows. Using the same modifier key, but with a right-click instead, you can resize any window from wherever your mouse is at that time. It can take some getting used to, but it's a fairly interesting capability.

In a way, this is even more useful, because while most apps have decently large title bars that make dragging a window easier, it can sometimes be tricky to align your mouse cursor with the edge of a windows (and even more so a corner) to correctly resize it. This way, you can do it from any position, and again, it even works if the window isn't in focus.

The tool takes your initial mouse position relative to the window to determine how resizing works. If your mouse is closer to the right edge of the window when you start dragging, moving to the right will make the window larger in that direction, but if the mouse is closer to the left edge, then moving to the right will first shrink the window from the left side until it gets to the smallest width allowed, at which point it then starts expanding to the right.

That same logic applies in all four directions, so you can think of any given window as being divided into quadrants which determine the initial resize behavior. It can feel a little confusing, but it's not too different from what you'd expect when resizing a window.

This needs to become a standard

Every platform should have this feature

There's something interesting about this feature in that I had never even thought of it as something that should exist, but now that I've seen it, I think something like this should be built into every PC platform. Windows shouldn't have to depend on an external tool to get this kind of capability, but other platforms need it too.

This certainly feels like the kind of feature you'd find deep in the system settings of something like KDE Plasma, and if it's not there yet, it should be. It might be best to keep it disabled by default, but the option should certainly be there.

It's something you might not realize you're missing until you try it, but the freedom to move windows without looking for a specific grab point makes things so much easier and it can save a lot of time once you're accustomed to using it. And this is just one of the many ways PowerToys has been making Windows better in recent years, when Microsoft seems to refuse to build those improvements directly into the system. Now more than ever, it's a great time to give PowerToys a shot.