Split-Screen, Freeform Windows and Foldables - The App on Any Screen Size

Open the recent-apps screen, tap the FastMediaSorter icon above its card and choose split-screen (on some phones the item is called Split screen or Open in split screen view), then pick the second app. FastMediaSorter resizes itself to its half and keeps working; drag the divider and it follows. On a tablet, a Chromebook or in desktop mode you can also drag it into a freeform window of any size.

Nothing restarts when the window changes size: the video keeps playing and the folder you were in stays open. How to start split-screen on your particular phone is explained in Google's split-screen help.

When the window is wide - a tablet, an unfolded foldable, a large phone, or any phone turned sideways - FastMediaSorter switches to its roomy layout: the main screen, the file browser and Settings spread out, and the collapsed groups of Settings stand in two columns. The switch depends on the width the app actually gets, not only on how the device is held, so a big phone held upright gets the roomy layout too, and a narrow split-screen half gets the compact one.

On the main screen, the buttons of the top bar, the programs panel, the streams panel and the resource type tabs line up along one left edge, in one column of finger-sized buttons.

On a tablet, a Chromebook, a large display or a VR headset you can keep two places open at once:

1. Open Settings, the General tab, General interface settings.
2. Switch on Allow new windows. On a Chromebook, an Android XR device or a VR headset it is already on.
3. In the file browser or the player, choose Open in new window. The folder or the file opens in a separate Android window that you can place next to the first one.

Switch the setting off and the action disappears; everything opens in the current window again.

A video can shrink into a small window that floats over other apps while you do something else. Switch it on with Enable Picture-in-Picture and leave the player with the home gesture - the video keeps playing in the corner. The details are in Picture-in-picture and background play.

Turning the device from upright to sideways and back keeps things where they belong:

• Dialogs and item grids keep their order for the D-pad and their compact size in landscape.
• Compact elements and Sync interval (min) in the General settings are there in both orientations - each of them used to be missing in one.
• In the Management tab, the two toggles that ask before deleting and before moving, and the two that make FastMediaSorter the phone's media handler and let it accept shared files, each stand as two full-width rows in portrait instead of two squeezed columns.
• The title of the player settings dialog no longer breaks into two lines in portrait, and its buttons sit in the usual place at the bottom.
• The edge bands of the screenshot edge gestures stay flush with the edges of the screen after a turn.
• Saving an account after signing in through the browser is safe even if the screen turns while the account is being stored.

The one screen that stays upright is the quick camera: it always shoots in portrait.