How to Use Split View in Zen Browser (Ctrl+Shift+\)

Split view divides Zen's current window into two panes, each showing a different tab, letting you view two pages simultaneously without resizing and positioning two entirely separate browser windows by hand — one of Zen's clearest practical departures from stock Firefox. **Triggering it**: press Ctrl+Shift+\ on Windows/Linux or Cmd+Shift+\ on Mac to split the current window using the active tab and whichever tab you specify as the second pane. The same outcome is also reachable by dragging one tab directly onto another in the sidebar or tab bar, which some users find more discoverable the first time they encounter the feature without prior documentation. **What it's genuinely useful for**: comparing two versions of the same document, referencing documentation in one pane while filling out a form or writing in another, or checking a live page preview against its source code in a second tab — any situation where constantly switching back and forth between two tabs breaks your concentration in a way that having both permanently visible avoids. **Exiting split view**: pressing the same Ctrl+Shift+\ shortcut again toggles back to a single-tab view, or you can close one of the two panes directly, which collapses back to showing just the remaining tab — often the more natural exit path once you're genuinely done needing the side-by-side comparison rather than deliberately re-triggering the same shortcut you used to create the split. **Split view versus two separate windows**: both solve a similar problem but trade off differently. Split view keeps everything inside one Zen window — a single taskbar or dock entry, one set of window controls governing both panes together — which many users find tidier for managing screen space, especially on a single monitor. Two genuinely separate OS-level windows instead give you fully independent control: moving one to a different monitor, resizing each to different proportions, or closing one without touching the other, none of which split view currently supports since its two panes stay bound together as one window. **How it interacts with Workspaces**: a split-view pairing is generally scoped to the Workspace it was created within — switching to a different Workspace replaces the split with that Workspace's own tabs (or a single-tab view, if that Workspace has no active split) rather than the same two-pane arrangement persisting globally across every Workspace you switch into. **Genuine limitations worth knowing**: split view supports exactly two panes, not three or more, so a workflow genuinely needing to reference several sources simultaneously requires combining it with a second window or monitor. Most builds also split roughly evenly rather than offering an adjustable ratio between the two panes, so a workflow that specifically needs one pane meaningfully larger than the other is generally better served by two manually resized separate windows instead. **Related tools worth knowing about**: for a workflow that needs the same page open in two places simultaneously rather than two different pages, duplicating a tab first (through the tab's own right-click menu, a standard Firefox-inherited action) and then splitting the duplicate against the original achieves that specific comparison without needing to navigate to the same URL twice manually. **Mistake to avoid**: expecting split view to persist automatically across a browser restart the same way regular tabs might, depending on your session-restore settings, isn't guaranteed — treat an active split as a session-scoped working arrangement for the task at hand rather than a permanent layout you can rely on surviving a full browser close and reopen.