Android’s split-screen mode has been with us for a few years now, having debuted with Nougat, but nearly every successive release has improved it to a lesser or greater extent. What remains the same is that some applications they refuse to work in split-screen mode, like Instagram.
If you want to use two apps at the same time on your mobile and one of them doesn’t support split screen mode, the good news is that you can force it from developer options. And, aside from a few minor visual bugs, it works pretty well.
Hook or crook split screen
It’s been six years since Android first introduced split-screen mode, and yet we’re still seeing important apps refusing to resize gracefullyas is the case with Instagram (which also refuses to rotate).
You’ll recognize them because they don’t show the split-screen menu in recent view, and if your layer lets you try to launch it in split-screen mode anyway, it won’t. Instead, you’ll see a message similar to The app does not support split screen.
Instagram still doesn’t support split screen
Luckily, the latest versions of Android allow you to force all apps to run in split-screen mode. The option is part of developer options which you will need to activate in the usual way: by going to Settings > information and typing in the build number.
Then enter the developer options (usually they are in the section System settings) and activate Force resizing of activities. Please note that the translation may vary between layers and even between Android versions.
After that, try your preferred method to open split screen again and you will see that it is now available in all apps. For example, if you open the recent view and long press the app icon, the menu will appear. split screen.
This way the app will open in split-screen mode whether you like it or not. What happens next is somewhat unpredictable: it may work properly or have elements that are somewhat inaccessiblebut at least it will work.
In this way, no app will escape multi-window mode, although this trick should be less and less necessary. Android 12 changes how multi-windows work: on large screens, all apps work in multi-windows, but those that don’t resize do so in compatibility mode. On small screens, you still have to use the previous trick.
