I am trying to open a tab in a new window in Visual Studio Code so I can move it to another screen. If I drag the tab the other screen, a file is created. Is there a shortcut to open a tab in a new Visual Studio Code window so I can move it to another screen?
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 <sup>[1]</sup>
The Duplicate Workspace in new Window Command was added in v1.24 (May 2018) to sort of address this.
- Open up Keyboard Shortcuts <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>K</kbd>, <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>S</kbd>
- Map
workbench.action.duplicateWorkspaceInNewWindow
to <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>N</kbd> or whatever you'd like
2. Open Active File in New Window <sup>[2]</sup>
Rather than manually open a new window and dragging the file, you can do it all with a single command.
- Open Active File in New Window <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>K</kbd>, <kbd>O</kbd>
3. New Window with Same File <sup>[3]</sup>
As AllenBooTung also pointed out, you can open/drag any file in a separate blank instance.
- Open New Window <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>N</kbd>
- Drag tab into new window
4. Open Workspace and Folder Simultaneously <sup>[4]</sup>
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.
- Open Folder <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>K</kbd>,<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>O</kbd>
- Save Current Project As a Workspace
- Open Folder <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>K</kbd>,<kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>O</kbd>
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