[FEATURE] Detachable OS-level windows in desktop app for split screen
Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 16 comments · opened Feb 22, 2026
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
- [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)
Problem Statement
I want to monitor multiple Claude instances at once, and I want to be able to cross reference things, etc. Hard to list all the things that I use split-screen for. I use it all the time in other apps for all kids of reasons.
Proposed Solution
I'd like to be able to have multiple OS-level windows of the claude desktop app open at once, so I can splitscreen them, have them on different monitors, etc.
Alternative Solutions
I've tried using multiple terminal windows, which works, but for many things the claude desktop app is nicer.
I've tried using claude.ai in the browser but it obviously can't access local folders etc
Priority
Medium - Would be very helpful
Feature Category
Other
Use Case Example
_No response_
Additional Context
_No response_
16 Comments
Found 3 possible duplicate issues:
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🤖 Generated with Claude Code
This would be absolutely perfect
Please, yes- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/30154#issuecomment-4016847217
yes please!
Yes, please, for Windows desktop app too!
it's 15th April, still a Yes too
April 21st. Yes please on windows too. This is killing me.
Yes please
YES! I usually have multiple workstreams going on at once. I like to have cowork on one window and code on another. Currently they are on separate views, which you then lose track of what is going on in cowork if you have code up and vice versa.
Yes please. multiple instances of claude desktop is needed. We should be able to chat in multiple desktop chats actively working the same way you can in claude code with multiple terminals.
I constantly work on multiple virtual desktops. Either in fully separate projects and/or in multiple working trees in the same project. Without the ability to have a window for each such workspace open I'm forced to constantly switch first virtual desktop, and then find the correct session in the desktop app.
The time taken goes from a fraction of a second to look over to my other screen, to several seconds just to get to the session, then much the same to get back to my IDE. This is an absolute must have feature to me.
And while you are at it, why not implement https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/61306 so that each session integrates with whatever IDE I'm working with the same way that the CLI does. Meaning that effectively the desktop app becomes a plugin for every IDE that supports /ide, starting with every Jetbrains IDE?
I don't know when this got added but on Claude Desktop Windows v1.9659.4, I can click and hold a session name from the left nav bar and drag it out of the main Claude Desktop Window. It creates a second window of the same session!!! I discovered this by accident. My Claude couldn't find any Anthropic documentation about this but it works!
<img width="2076" height="2922" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9f6f2646-45b6-44b4-a8e8-393e03cf52f8" />
I use multiple Windows 11 desktops, one for each project, so this would be very useful as I can keep all my project materials, including Claude sessions, in the same place.
I run six parallel research programmes off one shared vault — biomarkers, semantic
manifolds, biometrics, infrastructure, operations, publications — each as a separate
Cowork project. The work is genuinely concurrent, not just conceptually separate: GPU
jobs running on a box, a queue to watch, results landing throughout the day, and
cross-programme checks where a result in one changes what another should do.
Single-window means I context-switch instead of monitor. What I actually want is a
real-time dashboard across monitors — operations status on one screen, the experiment
I'm actively working on another, publications drafting on a third.
The browser workaround doesn't cover it. Cowork on web runs in the cloud with no bridge
to local files, so any project that reads or writes my shared folder has to live in the
desktop app. That forces every vault-dependent programme back into the single window and
leaves only the non-local work for the second monitor.
Ask: multiple OS-level windows spawned from the desktop app, each holding a different
project, independently placeable across monitors. Side-by-side sessions inside one window
doesn't solve it — the constraint is screen real estate across physical displays, not
session management.
For the split-screen and second-monitor part specifically, this is doable today on Windows, because the single-window limit is a profile lock rather than a windowing limitation: Claude Desktop refuses a second launch when it sees the same user data directory. Give each launch its own
--user-data-dirand you get genuine OS-level windows you can drag onto separate monitors, snap side by side and alt-tab between, each with its own session, account and MCP servers.The catch worth knowing before you try it by hand is that
claude://deep links are global, so whichever instance grabs the handler wins, and each profile needs its own one-time sign-in.Disclosure, since it is my own paid app rather than a script: I packaged this as Multi Instance for Claude Desktop on the Microsoft Store, $9.49 one-time.
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9NG247TJ47P0?cid=gh-27725
There is a second one, Multi Instance Pro (same price), where each instance also runs its own AI engine, so one window can sit on your Anthropic subscription while another runs Kimi, GLM, DeepSeek, OpenAI or a local Ollama model.
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N3X1FSCLMWK?cid=gh-27725-pro
None of that needs the app though. The
--user-data-dirtrick is the whole mechanism, and it is worth saying out loud in this thread because it means the feature request is really about Anthropic making the profile lock optional, not about windowing support.I often have multiple Cowork sessions running at once: one building out our internal systems/app, one working a live assignment, sometimes a third for personal use. Sometimes they're in the same project, sometimes separate. It would be great to give any session its own standalone window so I can monitor each one side by side instead of tab-switching. The desktop app should let users pop out any session, anywhere in the app, into its own window.