Your iPad may not be as capable as a full-blown computer, but it's no slouch either. Just as you can juggle multiple programs on your PC, you can do the same with apps on your iPad. The tablet's multitasking features let you view and work with two or three apps on the screen at the same time, allowing you to drag and drop text, images, links, and even files from one app to another.

Your iPad offers two different multitasking modes: Slide Over and Split View. With Slide Over, you can view two apps on the screen with one app in a narrow pane floating on top of the other. Split View allows you to display two apps on the screen in their own re-sizable panes. You can then add a third app, which resides in the floating pane. Using a feature called Picture-in-Picture, you can also watch a video in a small thumbnail window while you work with other apps.

You need to be running at least iOS 11 to multitask with your apps, but iPadOS 13.1 or higher adds a few more tricks. The update will allow you to open two different web pages in Safari to view them at the same time. It also makes it easier to select text you might want to copy or cut.

Both Slide Over and Split View are supported by the iPad Pro, the 5th generation iPad and later, the iPad Air 2 and later, and the iPad mini 4 and later. Certain older model iPads will work with Slide Over in a limited fashion but not with Split View.


Enable Multitask Features Before you can use these features, confirm that the options for multiple apps and gestures are enabled on your iPad. Navigate to Settings > Home Screen & Dock > Multitasking. Turn on the switches for Allow Multiple Apps, Picture in Picture, and Gestures if they're not already enabled.

Open Two Apps at Once The multitasking process works a lot easier if at least one of the apps you want to juggle resides in the dock. For this reason, you may want to move the apps you plan to open to the dock before you start. Open your first app—let's say Notes—and then swipe up from the bottom of the screen just enough to display the dock. Hold down the icon for the second app—this time, Mail—and drag it to the right side of the Notes screen until it turns into a small vertical window. Release your hold on the Mail app and it should slide into place as a floating window on the right. That places the new app in Slide Over mode. Swipe right to dismiss the floating app and swipe left to get it back later.

View Two Pages Side by Side Slide Over mode works fine if you don't need to see much information in the second app. However, if you want to increase the width of that app to see more of it, you'll need to jump into Split View mode, where you can resize the two app windows. With the Notes app on the left and the Mail app on the right in Slide Over view, press down on the top banner of the Mail app window and drag the window to the right, but not too much. The Notes window shrinks in size, allowing the Mail window to slide into place so both apps share the screen in a split view.

Adjust App Sizes You can now change the width of the two windows. Hold down the small vertical gray bar in the center of the border between the two windows and move the border to the right, and the screen for Mail shrinks. Release your hold when each window is the size you want. Not all iOS apps play nicely with Slide Over and Split View. App developers must add support for it, so you’ll need to experiment to see which apps work. Twitter and Slack support both modes, for example, but Facebook and Spotify do not. Naturally, all Apple-made apps support both modes.

Open Three Apps at Once Your iPad can display three apps at once by combining Slide Over and Split View mode. With two apps in Split View mode, hold down your finger on a third app and pull it out of the dock and onto the center of the screen. Release your hold. Your two current apps remain in Split View, while the third app resides in Slide Over mode. The new floating app will appear on the left or right after you drag it to the center. If you drag it to one side of the screen, it will replace the app on that side.

View the Same App More Than Once With iPadOS 13.1 or higher, you can open three separate instances of the same app at the same time. This maneuver works in either Slide Over or Split View mode for many different apps, including Word, Notes, and Safari. As an example, you can open Safari, then grab the Safari icon from the dock and drag it into Slide Over or Split View mode. The app opens side by side where you can view two different web pages at once. If you grab the Safari icon again, you can open a third instance of the app in Slide Over mode.

Drag and Drop Text With two windows open, you can drag and drop content between them. For this, let's open the Notes and Mail apps in Split View mode. Start a new message in the email app, then select the text in your note that you want to drag and drop to your email. With iPadOS 13, you can select text a few different ways depending on how much text you need to include. One option is to tap anywhere on the screen to display the text cursor, then tap twice on the spot where you want to start your selection. Move your finger across the text, and you should see it being selected. Alternatively, you can select a specific chunk of text in one shot. Double-tap a word to select it. Triple-tap any word in a sentence to select the entire sentence. And quadruple-tap a word in a paragraph to select the entire paragraph. You can then expand or shrink the section you plan to take by moving the vertical line at the end of the selection. Hold down the selected text for a second and then move your finger to the spot in your email where you want to drop the text. You should see the text displayed in a balloon with a green button in the upper-right. Release your finger to drop the selected text.

Drag and Drop Pictures You can drag and drop images right from your browser. Find an image on a web page that you want to move to another app and hold down on it for a second. Drag it into the other open app. Release your finger to drop the image. If you want to use pictures from your phone, open the Photos or Files app alongside Mail in Split View mode. Make sure your pictures are visible in thumbnail view, then hold down the photo and drag it into an email. Release your hold to drop the photo into the email. Multiple photos can also be grabbed in one shot. Hold down one picture in your Photos app and move it slightly to start dragging it. Now tap on each of the other photos you want to drag, and they're added one by one. Drag the photos to your email message. Release your hold and you should see each photo in your email.

Drag and Drop Files Here's one more drag-and-drop option: entire files. To do this, open the Files app. If you haven't already done so, you'll need to set up the app with access to one or more online file storage services, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box. Open the Mail app and the Files app in Split View mode. In the Files app, open one of your online services and navigate to a folder with multiple files. In the email app, start a new email. Drag and drop one of the files from the Files app to your email. You can also grab multiple files at a time. Start to drag a file from the Files app, then tap on a few more files to add them to the mix. Drop them in your email message, and you should see all the files you dragged as attachments.

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