TL;DR Option+click (Alt+click on Windows) a session in the sidebar to open it next to the current one, and turn on Worktree before you start it so the two don't edit the same folder. When you lose track, ask in either one: "which session touched the auth refactor?".
In the Claude Desktop Code tab, every session is its own conversation, with its own context, changes, model and permission mode. Once you have three or four open, cycling through them with Ctrl+Tab doesn't tell you which one is doing what. The app puts two sessions side by side in one window, pops any session out into a window of its own, notifies you when the one you aren't watching finishes, and tells you, when you ask, what each one has done.
How it works
- Each pane in split view is a full session: its own prompt box, model and permission mode at the bottom, and its own right panel with environment, folders, branch, context used and changes. Each session counts its context separately.
- Only one pane has focus, the one you opened or clicked last. The other is dimmed but keeps working.
- From any session, Claude can list your other sessions in the app, read what they've done, rename them, archive them and message them.
What the sidebar shows
This is how my app shows it, redrawn from my screenshots of November 1, 2026, with neutral names:
A session that started others, for example with Start on a suggested task, shows them hanging from it on a line, with a branch icon and their count under its name. A blue dot marks a session with something new.
Right-click opens its menu. Open in leads to New window, your editors, Finder, and Continue in, Cloud, which moves the session to the cloud. The docs also list Split view in that submenu, but my app doesn't show it: Option+click is the way that works.
How to run several at once
1. Open another session without closing this one
Cmd+N (Ctrl+N on Windows) or + New in the sidebar. Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab move between sessions, and so do Cmd+Shift+] and Cmd+Shift+[.
2. Turn on Worktree before the first message
Worktree is off by default, and without it Claude works in the project folder itself: two sessions like that edit the same files. In a Git repository, turn it on in the row under the prompt box and the session works in an isolated copy under .claude/worktrees/. Each copy takes disk space and stays there until you delete it; how to see it and free it up.
3. Put it alongside with Option+click
Hold Option (Alt on Windows) and click another session in the sidebar: it opens next to the current one, with focus. To change which session a pane shows, click inside that pane, then click the session you want in the sidebar. Cmd+Ctrl+W (Ctrl+Alt+W on Windows) takes the focused session out of split view.
4. Or give it a window of its own
Cmd+click (Ctrl+click on Windows) the session, or right-click, Open in, New window. That's the one for a second monitor.
5. Let the app tell you when one finishes
When a session you aren't viewing finishes a task, the app sends an OS notification. If the session belongs to a project, you get the project's notifications instead.
6. Ask Claude which session did what
In any session, in plain words:
Which session touched the auth refactor?
What did the API session conclude?
Tell the payments session the schema changed
Archive the sessions whose PRs have merged
Claude reads those sessions and answers. A message shows up in the other session as a card with the sending session's title and a link back; if that session is mid-task, it reads the message once the task finishes and can reply.
What Claude can and can't see
- Only the sessions the app runs itself: local, SSH and WSL sessions in the Code tab. Not cloud sessions, and not the ones you started from the terminal or VS Code, even in worktrees of the same project. For those there's messaging another session.
- Never the session you're asking from.
- By default, the 20 most recently active sessions, leaving out archived ones unless you ask for them.
- It shows an approval card before archiving a session, except in Auto and Bypass permissions, where it archives without asking. To get the card, switch to Manual.
- Archiving can cost you uncommitted work in the worktree: if the only changes are untracked files and Claude opened a PR in that session, the app can delete them once the PR merges. Commit before you ask it to archive.
Reference
| Action | macOS | Windows |
|---|---|---|
| New session | Cmd+N | Ctrl+N |
| Next or previous session | Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab | Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab |
| Open a session alongside | Option+click | Alt+click |
| Open a session in its own window | Cmd+click | Ctrl+click |
| Take the focused session out of split view | Cmd+Ctrl+W | Ctrl+Alt+W |
| Close the session | Cmd+W | Ctrl+W |
| Show every shortcut | Cmd+/ | Ctrl+/ |
In the terminal, the way to see all your sessions at a glance is Agent View.
Official docs: Work in parallel with sessions · Work across sessions
Requirements
- An up to date Claude desktop app: Claude → Check for Updates… on macOS or Help → Check for Updates… on Windows. Anthropic announced split view on October 14, 2026, and I checked the shortcuts in this tip in my app on November 1.
- Git, for Worktree.
