---
name: Split view
slug: split-view
category: layout
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: A layout of two or more side by side panes where a choice in the
  leading pane decides what the trailing pane shows.
aliases:
  - name: split views
    source: hig
  - name: two pane layout
    source: community
  - name: dual pane
    source: community
  - name: side by side panes
    source: community
tags:
  - screen-size
  - windowing
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - drawer
    - holy-grail-layout
    - sidebar
    - list-detail
    - multi-window-mode
    - split-screen-layout
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso:
    - splitter
    - pane
implementations:
  - system: hig
    name: Split views
    url: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/split-views
sources:
  - title: Split views, Human Interface Guidelines
    url: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/split-views
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: two panes where one drives the other
---

The arrangement is older than the web: a file browser, a mail client, and a
settings window all put the index on the left and the thing you picked on the
right. What makes it a split view rather than two boxes next to each other is the
dependency. The leading pane holds a selection, the trailing pane is that
selection expanded, and the selection stays visible while you read it, so moving
to the next item costs one click instead of a click and a trip back.

Two properties are worth writing down. The panes have their own size rules: the
leading one is usually resizable within a minimum and a maximum, and the trailing
one takes what is left, which is why the divider clamps in the specimen rather
than letting the sidebar disappear. And selection persists: the row you came from
stays marked, because a detail pane with no visible source reads as a page that
arrived from nowhere.

Apple's vocabulary allows a third column, which is the same relationship applied
twice: mailbox, message list, message. Past three the pattern collapses under its
own width, and past two it needs a plan for what happens when the window is too
narrow to hold them all. That plan is the same everywhere: the panes stop being
side by side and become a stack you navigate, list first, detail pushed in over
it, with a back control that reverses the push. Building the narrow case as an
afterthought is how a split view ends up with a detail pane nobody can get out
of.