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Instead of splitting windows, is it possible to drag the tabs to a new window in Visual Studio Code like Sublime, PHPstorm or Chrome?

When I drag a tab onto the desktop, it will copy the file.

Anaksunaman
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AllenBooTung
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    Why the heck does simply dragging a tab out of VSCode not work? I was shocked when I tried doing that and it made a copy of the file I dragged out to my desktop lol. There has got to be a extension that makes dragging a tab out of VSCode, open that file in a new instance of VSCode. That is how Sublime Text works be default and every other program I have ever used... – Chris Marabate Apr 24 '21 at 13:26
  • this is WinDoze – OsamaBinLogin Apr 27 '23 at 20:11

2 Answers2

87

This is a very highly upvoted issue request in Github for Floating Windows.

Until they support it, you can try the following workarounds:

1. Duplicate Workspace in New Window [1]

The Duplicate Workspace in new Window Command was added in v1.24 (May 2018) to sort of address this.

  1. Open up Keyboard Shortcuts Ctrl + K, Ctrl + S
  2. Map workbench.action.duplicateWorkspaceInNewWindow to Ctrl + Shift + N or whatever you'd like

Duplicate Workspace in New Window

2. Open Active File in New Window [2]

Rather than manually open a new window and dragging the file, you can do it all with a single command.

  1. Open Active File in New Window Ctrl + K, O

Open Active File in New Window

3. New Window with Same File [3]

As AllenBooTung also pointed out, you can open/drag any file in a separate blank instance.

  1. Open New Window Ctrl + Shift + N
  2. Drag tab into new window

4. Open Workspace and Folder Simultaneously [4]

VS Code will not allow you to open the same folder in two different instances, but you can use Workspaces to open the same directory of files in a side by side instance.

  1. Open Folder Ctrl + K,Ctrl + O
  2. Save Current Project As a Workspace
  3. Open Folder Ctrl + K,Ctrl + O

For any workaround, also consider setting setting up auto save so the documents are kept in sync by updating the files.autoSave setting to afterDelay, onFocusChange, or onWindowChange

AutoSave

KyleMit
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    the issue on github is open since 2016, and they closed it in 2018 saying that it's on the team's radar... lol, rip. – Jose V Jan 08 '20 at 20:19
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    It actually looks like the issue is still 'open', but just 'locked' for further comments. That's probably pretty reasonable for an issue with 3k+ reactions already, as it's not likely to invite more helpful feedback and seems like it's on the team's radar. – KyleMit Jan 08 '20 at 22:33
  • I'm very happy with the `Ctrl-k,o` solution. VS Code is a breakthrough product for me. After 40 years in the business I have finally found an improvement on notepad++. so I'm happy to let them set their own priorities. – Stephen Hosking Apr 11 '23 at 01:03
  • none of this solutions work if you are connected to a dev container (using Remote Development extension) – vlad_tepesch Jul 14 '23 at 07:28
37

■New Window with Same File

  1. Press CTRL+SHIFT+N to create a default new window.

  2. Drag the tab into this new window.

■Command Line

  1. Add C:\Users\Allen\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code to system path.

  2. Type this command in terminal.

PS D:\xampp\htdocs\bi>code vendor/bin/../composer/autoload_files.php -n

■AutoHotKey

  1. Compile this ahk script and execute it.

　

+!v::
clipboardstr := Clipboard
run, code %clipboardstr% -n
return

  1. Right click on the tab and then press shift+ alt+ c in vscode can copy file path to clipboard.

  2. shift+ alt+ v open this page to new window.

AllenBooTung
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