Move a Window with the Keyboard in Windows 7/8/10

Comes in handy once in a blue moon

So for those of you who do not like to use a mouse, it would be pretty cool if you could move a window using just the keyboard in Windows 7 right? Well, there are a couple of ways to do this and even though you may not need to do it very often, it does come in handy on the rare occasion!

In this article, I’ll tell you how to move a window in small increments to the exact position you want, how to snap a window to the left or right and how to move a window between monitors on a multi-monitor setup, all by just using the keyboard!

Method 1 – Incremental Move

For exact positioning, you first need to click on the window. Now this is obviously going to only work for windows that are not fully maximized. If it’s fully maximized, there is really nowhere to move the window.

Step 1: Either click on the window or if you want to use the keyboard, press ALT+TAB and make the window you want to move active.

Step 2: Now go ahead and press ALT+SPACEBAR and you’ll see a small menu appear in the window.

Step 3: Now press M, which will basically choose the Move option in the menu.

Step 4: Now use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the window to the new position that you desire.

Step 5: Press the Enter key to get out of the move mode. Also, if you want to have the window go back to the original position before you started the move, press the Esc key instead.

Method 2 – Windows Snap

Windows has a nifty feature that lets you snap windows to the left-hand or right-hand side of the screen. If you drag a window to the right or left, it will automatically resize and snap to the side.

To do this using the keyboard, press the Windows Key + the right or left arrow. Make sure to hold down the Windows key while pressing the left and right arrow keys. It’s actually pretty neat and much faster than dragging the window around the screen.

Method 3 – Multi-Monitor Setups

Lastly, for moving between multiple monitors, all you have to do is add SHIFT to the above key combo, so it would simply be Windows Key + Shift + right or left arrow.

For the power users who really want to control their windows, moving may not be enough. So here’s a few other shortcuts that could come in handy if you are left with nothing but a keyboard and Windows:

End – Will display the bottom of the active window (in case you need to scroll using the keyboard)

Home – Will display the top of the active window

F11 – Will either maximize or minimize the active window

Ctrl + Tab – If you have a window with tabs, then this will move you forward through the tabs

Ctrl + Shift + Tab – Will move you back through the tabs

Windows Key + Shift + Up Arrow – This will stretch a window to the top and bottom of the screen.

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications. Read Aseem’s Full Bio

Use a Keyboard Shortcut to Instantly Move Windows Between Monitors

One of the most common tasks on a dual-monitor setup is moving windows from one screen to the other. Traditionally this involves dragging the title bar across screens via the mouse. Windows 10 is full of Keyboard Shortcuts, however, for older OS’s like Windows 7, tools like DisplayFusion make the job easier, but I’ve found that a simple keyboard shortcut provides the best solution of all.

The keyboard shortcut is: Windows Key + Shift + Left/Right Arrow

This shortcut will instantly transfer windows from one screen to another while attempting to maintain window size and relative position. This timesaver is just another quick groovy tip that I use every day, and I hope it helps out anyone else who uses two monitors on a Windows computer.

41 Comments

Excellent tip – thanks!

Great tip. I will use this all the time now! Thank you.

yeah no kidding same here! How did I miss this one hehhe.

Nice find Austin

Windows 7 and Windows 8? How did I miss this one!

This is a good one Austin.
Maybe you can help me find a way to create kb shortcuts for typing in my username.
Every time I have to login to a secure company site it asks for my lengthy user name.
How do I do this? I want to create a custom shortcut key strokes for username as well as password.

http://www.autohotkey.com/ would be my first choice, just store script file in a secure or encrypted folder. I’ll have to write up a tutorial on how to do this, great question!

Look forward to the tutorial. Email me when you do this. Hope you are doing well.

Does not work for me on my Win 7 Toshiba Satellite.

windows 8.1 does not work either.

SUPER TIP! That’s something I need to do a dozen times a day and you have just saved me a LOT of effort.

Keyboard shortcuts for the Win! Another huge time saver for me is Windows Key + L to lock the screen.

Great for stepping away and not leaving you computer up for anyone to access.

Thanks, a great timesaver

Love this one, Austin. Where do you come up with all this great material?

I have 2 monitors at work, but while at demo time I am giving from another machine which has a single monitor where I am logging into my pc remotely, then the short cut key (Windows key+ Shift+ Left/Right Arrows keys) is not working in my demo pc( which has only one monitor).

In that case I am facing many problems like if I open any window it is going to another monitor (some times) which i am unable to access from the demo pc because it does not know how many monitors does my remote pc have?

How can I resolve this problem? Its really causing a lot of trouble for me.
Any help highly appreciated.

How to move an off-screen window into view

Technical Level : Basic

Sometimes a window may be stuck out of view. Because you can’t see it, you can’t drag it back into view. Here’s how to fix this right up.

What you might see

When this problem occurs, you might notice it as an app that doesn’t show up when you launch it. Maybe you click the Taskbar button and it looks like it’s open, but the window isn’t showing up anywhere. When you point to the Taskbar button, you might even see a preview picture of the window, but the real big one is nowhere to be seen.

Option 1: Use the keyboard method to bring the window back into view.

1. Point to the running program icon on the taskbar (but do not click it)
2. When the preview popup appears, move your mouse pointer and right-click on the popup preview, choose «move» like this. After you click «move», do not click again anywhere until you do step 3 and 4 below.

After you click move, press any arrow key (up, down, right, left) just once. This locks your mouse pointer to the top of the off-screen window.

After you press an arrow key, move (but do not click) your mouse. Because the off-screen window is «stuck» to the pointer, it will move also. Keep moving until you see your Explorer window, then you can finally click.

Option 2: Use the Windows 7 window move shortcut (Windows 7 and higher only)

1. Make sure that the off-screen program is in focus (the active program highlighted on the taskbar) so that it will receive commands.
2. hold the Windows key and press the left or right arrows on your keyboard. This shortcut moves the selected window to the left or right. Keep holding and tapping the same arrow until it shows up in view.

Prevent the problem in the future

Many times this happens because an extra monitor enabled in the system, but you don’t have an extra screen actually plugged in or being used. So the window is on this other monitor. To prevent this issue from happening again, hold and press P until the first option is highlighted. This will set your computer to only use the one primary monitor and no other extra screens.

Windows 10 — How to move window to other monitor by using keyboard shortcuts?

I try to switch a window from my second monitor to the first, because my OS always opens some windows where they were last closed. E.g. if I open up VLC Player to watch a video and then move the window to monitor B, close it and reopen it, then it is opened on monitor B the next time.

This is obviously very annoying, especially if monitor B is not on.

Is there a shortcut so I can move the windows easily to monitor A again if it has focus?

I tried to give the window focus and press

Windows + SHIFT + → or: Windows + SHIFT + ←

But nothing happens.

5 Answers 5

I solved it by unchecking the box which you can see in the following screenshot.

Go to Control Panel > Ease of Access Center > Make the Keyboard Easier to Use

Then search for the setting «Make it easier to manage windows» and un-check «Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen»

After unchecking this option, it works again.

Go to Settings -> System -> Multitasking

The first section in the Multitasking settings is called Snap. I had the first four items in the list set to Off. When I changed them to On, it (moving windows with Windows + Shift + → / ← (Right / Left arrow key) started working again.

(Click image to enlarge)

An alternative method of moving desktop applications using the keyboard, is to open the application system menu by pressing ALT + Space and then press m to select move. Then you can use the arrow keys to move the application window. I regularly use this to move applications that are placed outside my desktop.

Note that this will not work if «move» is disabled in the application. Which will be the case if the application is maximized.

This method also works when «Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen» is checked in the control panel.

How to move a window using keyboard only in Windows 10 and other versions

It is not often that you need to move a window using the keyboard only in the Windows operating system. Windows is designed to be used with a mouse besides the keyboard, and now touch. Every Windows user at least has a touchpad or mouse these days. However, if the keyboard is what you prefer to use, then here is how you can move a window using the keyboard! Moving a window using the keyboard can be useful if your window is partially or fully out of the screen or if some buttons that you need to click are under the Taskbar which usually appears always on top covering them.

1. Switch to the desired window using Alt + Tab .
   Tip: See how to tweak Alt+Tab to enlarge thumbnails and disable live aero peek preview. Also see two secrets of Alt + Tab dialog in Windows 10 you might not be aware of.
2. Press Alt + Space shortcut keys together on the keyboard to open the window menu.
3. Now, press M . The mouse cursor will move to the title bar of the window and turn into a cross with arrows:
4. Use the left, right, up and down arrow keys to move your window. When you have moved the window to the desired position, press Enter .

Modern operating systems like Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7 allow you to perform few extra actions with windows. They allow you to control the size and positioning of open windows better by dragging them to the edge of the screen. If you drag a window using its title bar to the top edge of the screen, it will be maximized. With the mouse pointer touching the left or right edges of the screen when dragging a window, it will be snapped to the left or right side of the screen respectively. This feature is called Snap.

If you grab the title bar of a window with the mouse and drag and shake it, all other background windows will be minimized. This is called Aero Shake. Both actions have their own hotkeys:
Win + Home : Same as Aero Shake (minimizes all windows except the foreground window)
Win + Left arrow key: Snaps an app window to the left.
Win + Right arrow key: Snaps an app window to the right.
Win + Up arrow key: Maximizes a window.
Win + Shift + Up arrow key: Maximizes/resizes a window vertically.
Win + Down arrow key: Minimizes a window if it’s not maximized, otherwise it restores the window to its original non-maximized sized.

Aero Snap in Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7 can also be customized. While the operating system does not allow you to control individual options, you can use my freeware Winaero Tweaker to enable or disable snapping, drag to maximize and vertical resizing options:

Bonus tip: You can also resize a window to a specific size or move it to specific position using the free app, Sizer.

Also, using the free AquaSnap, you can get Windows 10 Snap features in Windows 7 and XP.That’s it.

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

7 thoughts on “ How to move a window using keyboard only in Windows 10 and other versions ”

I want to add that you can hold down Ctrl when using arrow keys to move window more precise.

Hey thanks Ivan, I didn’t know this. Great tip.

Could you add how to send a window to another virtual desktop (Windows 10), and/or that this is not possible with keyboard shortcuts?

win+cltr+ right arrow to go virtual desktop and left arrow to back

Fantastic – thank you!

My computer, a Dell PC with Windows 10, powers up just fine, but I cannot use it because the Aps page sizes are so big that I cannot access and use Restore to restore back to normal page size. I am not at my computer now, obviously, so I just copied your Aero Shake and Snap info to take home with me to see what I can do with it. If your info saves my butt, you can be sure that you will get a donation from me.