PiP (Picture in Picture) & Crop

With Picture in Picture, you can create a small interactive thumbnail preview for any window, crop it, and hide the original window to show only the thumbnail preview.

The feature also comes with a crop function that allows you to activate the crop directly from the native window as shown below:

Hotkey

  • For activating Picture-in-Picture (Picture in Picture (PiP) button) mode, the default hotkey is ALT + Q
  • To activate Interact (Mouse Interact button in PiP mode for enabling mouse and keyboard interaction with the window), you first must put the window in Picture-in-Picture mode. There is no default hotkey assigned. To configure the hotkey go to the hotkeys page
  • For activating Crop (Crop button for selecting and displaying a specific region of a window, available in both the native window and PiP view), there is no default hotkey assigned. To configure the hotkey, see below.

To change or assign a hotkey, read here:
Quick toolbar hotkeys

Functions

Show original window ('Show Original Window' option in PiP mode, allowing the original window to remain visible alongside the PiP view)

When enabled, the original window will be visible

Picture-in-Picture mode with 'Show Original Window' disabled (default setting)
“Show original window” disabled (*Default)
Picture-in-Picture mode with 'Show Original Window' enabled, displaying both views simultaneously
“Show original window” enabled

To change the default behavior, see the additional settings section below

Modifying crop state from the native window

You can modify the crop selection directly from the native window (if “Show original window enabled”)

Interact (Mouse Interact button in PiP mode for enabling mouse and keyboard interaction with the window)

Interact mode lets you control the window using a mouse and keyboard via the PiP view.

PiP Interact with mouse preview clone

Note: this function may not work correctly for some windows.
The function is already enabled by default with PiP for a few programs such as Chrome, Edge, Office applications, and more.
To see a list of all predefined programs, read more below.
There is an option to add more programs to the list (so it will be enabled by default also for the program you added)

It is also enabled by default with “read mode” enabled ('Enable Read Mode' in PiP view, showing a larger preview and mouse cursor on hover).
When “Enable read mode” is checked, you will see a bigger preview with your mouse cursor above the window. So you don’t have to make the PiP bigger to see where you click or read.

The interact mode is also enabled by default with “smart drag” ('Enable Smart Drag' in PiP view, allowing window dragging directly from the PiP area when not hovering text, in interaction mode).
When “Enable smart drag” is checked, the interact function allows you to drag the PiP view when the mouse is not above some text. The function treats it as a text-selection operation when it is above text.

Smart Drag enabled in PiP view—allows text selection when hovering over text, and triggers window drag when clicking and dragging outside text areas

Crop (Crop button for selecting and displaying a specific region of a window, available in both the native window and PiP view)

The crop function allows you to “cut” the entire window and show only the region you selected from it.

Activation methods

  • The first way to activate the crop is directly on the native window.
  • The second way is to enable it after PiP is enabled, and you activate it on the PiP view.

For both methods, you can assign a hotkey via [Quick toolbar hotkeys]

Visibility modes

When applying cropping, you can choose whether to hide the original window.

Selecting a crop region in PiP mode with 'Hide Original Window' enabled (default setting)
Crop (while hiding the original window) (*Default)
Selecting a crop region in PiP mode with 'Hide Original Window' disabled
Crop into an additional PiP view with crop-enabled

To change the default visibility method, open the “PiP & Crop” tab (Try Icon -> Settings -> All Settings -> PiP & Crop), and there you have the option to change the default behavior

Hide the original window Wwen applying cropping' option in WindowTop crop settings

Auto move ('Enable auto move' option for PiP view, automatically repositioning to avoid covering text or images)

The auto-move function will automatically move the PiP view away from any text or image on the screen.

PiP auto-move in action—view automatically shifts to avoid covering underlying text or images

Note that this function will work better on Windows 11. There are API limitations on Windows 10 and earlier, so the implementation is not as good.

Additional settings

To access the quick settings

Tray icon -> Settings -> All Settings -> PiP & Crop tab

PiP comes with the following settings included

Default apps/windows where interact (Mouse Interact button in PiP mode for enabling mouse and keyboard interaction with the window) will be enabled by default.

Enable interact-read-mode ('Enable Read Mode' in PiP view, showing a larger preview and mouse cursor on hover) by default (enabled by default)

Hide the original window ('Show Original Window' option in PiP mode, allowing the original window to remain visible alongside the PiP view) when activating PiP mode by default (enabled by default)

Enable title bar – show the window title on the PiP view (enabled by default)

Show preview on mouse hover (enabled by default)

Enable live preview to the actual window in real-time (enabled by default)

Stay away from text or images ('Enable auto move' option for PiP view, automatically repositioning to avoid covering text or images) (disabled by default).

Show the PiP button (Picture in Picture (PiP) button) in the toolbar (enabled by default).

Show the Crop button (Crop button for selecting and displaying a specific region of a window, available in both the native window and PiP view) in the toolbar (disabled by default. The PiP button has a checkbox that replaces this button).

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