How to close view windows?

Question

I would like to close some view windows that I opened accidentally.

See the image below:

enter image description here

Edit: another note: I tried searching for the solution, but only found things like "Join Area", which don't seem to work in this situation.

blender is rocket science! Everything is so complicated and you need to watch you tube videos or ask here how to move just some view or something so simple. — Vasil Valchev, May 23 '16 at 19:04
My god, why? I honestly try to switch to Blender every few months but after an hour of utter frustration I have to go back. I love the Blender concept, the looks, the ideas, the fact it draws the UI using OpenGL the same way on all platforms. But the UI usability is beyond words. Can someone fork Blender and for once create a proper UI without all the stupidity? — kaalus, Nov 14 '16 at 14:55
I am also on my fourth or fifth attempt to befriend Blender... — Jaroslav Záruba, Feb 20 '21 at 03:54

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-06T12:56:43.957

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Click and drag on the corner with the grabber (same one for making a new window) and drag DIRECTLY over the neighboring panel that you want to make disappear (if you drag anywhere else, you'll make a new panel). This will make a grey arrow which shows you which panel will get put on top of the other. Release the mouse button when your cursor is over the panel you want to go away.

Two caveats:

when you click and drag, you must immediately cross the boundary between two panels, before dragging anywhere else. THEN it will make the grey arrow. If you click and drag into the same panel, you'll create a new panel.
you can only join two windows that share a COMPLETE edge. If you have one full window on the left, and two windows (one on top of the other) on the right, then you have to join the two windows on the right together before you can join the window on the left.

Now, using this knowledge, you have a bit of a puzzle to solve. You have to close each of the windows in the red square individually. So I'd start with the smallest one first. Join it with the one with which it shares a complete edge, and the go to the next-smallest.

This is exactly what you need: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMBi1R7KB48

edited Jul 06 '20 at 12:56

answered Dec 17 '13 at 21:54

Matt

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Thanks for the solution! I'd spent half an hour fiddling around with the corners and joins, but only made the problem worse. At one point, I think I had around 50 windows open. But your caveats tells me what I needed to know and couldn't find. After some plugging and chugging my workspace is back to normal. Thanks! – Brent Dec 17 '13 at 22:21
I accidently opened outliner. Now how do I close it? – Santosh Kumar Feb 23 '16 at 12:02
You don't. Blender doesn't have windows that you open and close, with the notable exceptions of the preferences window and the console window. Blender has panes, and no pane can be empty. You can change that pane from the outliner to something else, but the only way to "close" it is to get rid of the pane altogether as described above. This is true for all panes anywhere in Blender. – Matt Mar 01 '16 at 16:33
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Watch 3 minute video to be able to close a window? Are you guys out of your minds? – kaalus Nov 14 '16 at 14:58
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No. First, read the answer. Second, use the video for a visual demonstration of a necessarily visual process. Third, tone down your incredulity and behave with more courtesy in the community you've only recently joined. – Matt Nov 15 '16 at 20:41
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Seems when I try this, it splits it into two panes. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. – Aaron Nov 23 '16 at 02:55
It's likely that you're grabbing the border, rather than the "grabber." The answer below has images that may be helpful. The other thing you might be doing is just single-clicking the grabber. I don't remember what this does, but it might split the window. You have to downclick and hold the grabber, and drag it over the window that you want to close. – Matt Nov 23 '16 at 14:29
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Questions and answers such as these while make the life of Blender users definitely easier also are a solid proof of how poorly designed the UI of this software is. – rbaleksandar Mar 08 '17 at 10:27
@kaalus the second answer has a screenshot for ya – Nathan majicvr.com Jun 01 '18 at 02:37
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Well this sucks ^^ how could they think not to add a cross icon to simply close a view panel ? – singe3 Oct 25 '18 at 17:47
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Because you can't "simply" close a view panel. Someone has to decide which panel replaces the one you just closed, and if that "someone" is the computer, and it expands the wrong one, then the result is even less useful than if you'd just left the panel open, because now you've got to clean up the computer's bad guess. When control can be given to the user in a simple way (like dragging the panel you want to keep ontop of the one you want to close) it's almost always better than asking the computer to guess what the user wants. – Matt Oct 26 '18 at 19:14
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I think this is bad UX though. You should be able to right-click the corner handle and choose "close". Also, if you happen to drag the wrong way at first and wind up entering the mode that is about to create a new pane, then there's no way avoid creating a new pane except to hit Escape. It's also silly to start the interaction to close a pane by grabbing a widget in a different one - one that requires some thought as to which pane it should be. It's more intuitive to point to the pane that you want to go away (as shown by the red box in the question.) – Wyck Nov 02 '19 at 00:35
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This should have another caveat that you have to cross the boundary into the panel that you want to close before you move the mouse anywhere else - otherwise you inadvertently begin the interaction to create a new pane - an interaction from which it is challenging to escape too - and which makes things worse if you do it by accident. Very frustrating! – Wyck Nov 02 '19 at 00:40
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I am unable to understand this answer. I attempted to follow it, and now I just have even more panels that I'm unable to get rid of. All I did was press the wrong key by accident! Why is it so hard to undo that action? – N. Virgo Jul 05 '20 at 09:27
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Alternatively, you can (right?)-click on the boundary between two panels and choose "join area." You just have to make sure that the edge they're sharing is perfectly lined up, first. – Matt Jul 06 '20 at 12:45
You have new panels because you moved the mouse the wrong direction after clicking the grabber. Click-and-hold on the "grabber" then drag DIRECTLY over the neighboring panel that you want to go away. If you drag into the same panel you clicked on, you'll create a new panel. There's another caveat: Once the gray arrow shows up, you WON'T create a new panel regardless of where you move the mouse. It's not a great system, but once you figure out the rules, it works well enough. I find myself changing the layout so rarely, that it really doesn't bother me. – Matt Jul 06 '20 at 12:59
@Wyck Your instincts are good: You can also click (right-click, I think) on the boundary between panels, and choose "join area." – Matt Jul 06 '20 at 13:01
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"Click and drag directly" if you want to spend another hour chasing tens of windows :D – Jaroslav Záruba Feb 20 '21 at 03:57
The insight that finally made understand was that the cursor does not change to a plus-sign, because it near the junction of two (window/editor) areas, but because it hovers over the corner of one area. That is: Resize features are a property of area corners. Hence it is possible to have this "drag over the boundary" option at all. I suggest to make this clearer in the (already very nice) answer. – creativecoding Jul 20 '21 at 11:35
@Matt Join area has no effect. – doug65536 Jul 22 '21 at 10:58

score 137 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:57

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To close an area, grab the tab that overlaps the area you want to keep and abuts the area you want to close:

screenshot showing draggable tab in the top right corner of an area
_{There's a corresponding tab in the bottom left corner for closing areas below and to the left.}

To close, drag the tab over the area you want to remove. An arrow will appear:

enter image description here

Release the mouse and the area with the arrow over it will disappear.

Another way

Hover between the areas so your mouse looks like this:

enter image description here

The right click and select Join area:

enter image description here

Then mouse over the area you want to remove and click to confirm.

For your situation, you must first close all the areas inside the area you want to close:

enter image description here

See the manual for more info.

edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:57

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answered Dec 17 '13 at 21:54

gandalf3

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Neat gif and good explanation, too. Ultimately I needed more detail on the conditions that enable joining instead of splitting, which Matt's answer provided, but this answer is helpful, too. I'd upvote if I could. – Brent Dec 17 '13 at 22:23
@Brent You can vote on as many answers/questions as you want. You can only accept one answer on each of your own questions. – gandalf3 Dec 17 '13 at 22:24
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True, votes aren't exclusive, but they have a requirement of 15 reputation, which I currently don't have. – Brent Dec 17 '13 at 22:45
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I just checked and I'm pretty close--I've made a note to come back and upvote this once I reach 15 :) – Brent Dec 17 '13 at 22:50
+1 I was lost with Matt answer (the accepted one) but thanks to this one I could find the right way to join areas. Besides that, a different way to do the task is also explained. Why isn't this answer the accepted one? – Victor Henriquez May 31 '15 at 15:32
This should be the accepted answer. – Sabuncu Feb 09 '18 at 18:38
The second way seems to be the only way to close a window at the left side? – Pieter De Bie Apr 01 '18 at 06:31
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@PieterDeBie There are handles on both the bottom left and top right corners; use the top right one for closing in the up or right directions, use the bottom left one for closing in the down or left directions. I used the right click menu in the gif just for some variety. – gandalf3 Apr 01 '18 at 06:34
"Join area" is much better, because there's a 50% chance that trying to drag the window over will just subdivide instead of join. Also, why is there no "close" button? – Nick Mar 16 '19 at 20:13
@Nick It's not obvious, I admit, but the behavior is at least consistent. Dragging into the area containing the hash always subdivides, dragging into the other area always closes. – gandalf3 Mar 16 '19 at 22:58
Looks like they got rid of the little gray handles in your gifs. You just have to know to click there now. Astounding design choice. – BrainSlugs83 Sep 07 '19 at 01:22
Note that the target is tiny as of 2.8 and you have to look for the + sign. But also you often can't join areas and if you try it will instead split your window again. I have 27 timelines filling half my screen. The only way to know if you will be allowed to join this area is from the right-click menu. You have to do them in the right order, like an intolerable sudoku. – glenatron Apr 20 '20 at 23:52

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 07 '18 at 18:03

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You can also do this if you're pixel-precise:

answered Sep 07 '18 at 18:03

Manu Järvinen

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score 15 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 17 '13 at 22:12

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Just drag the hatched edge to another side and release the mouse button (when the big arrow appears).

enter image description here

answered Dec 17 '13 at 22:12

stacker

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score 13 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 21 '21 at 03:15

I felt the need to post another answer here, because so many of these answers appear to refer to old versions of Blender, or just are not clear, and I spent a good half hour at least just trying to figure out basic window management, pulling my hair out.

In particular, I'm on V 2.93.4 and there are no "grabbers" or diagonal hashes in the corners of windows.

Like a lot off commenters on @Matt's top answer, I was really struggling to figure out why sometimes I was splitting the window and sometimes joining two windows. My mistake was that I was starting my drag exactly at the intersections of the windows.

What I have learned, through experimentation, is that it's only really predictable if you conciously start the drag with the crosshair inside of one of the panes:

To split the pane, you'll continue your drag further into the interior of the same pane where you begin the drag

Whereas to merge/join two pains you will drag across the pane boundary, immediately leaving the pane where you started, like this:

If you start with the crosshair exactly on the boundary, then it's a lot more difficult to know which of the two operations you are going to end up doing, so be conscious about trying to grab a little bit inside the window that you want to split, or in the case of merging, start your drag within the one that you want to keep, out of a pair of adjacent windows.

THIS is the answer that actually makes everything 100% clear. — asa9ohan, Mar 06 '24 at 07:59
At first I thought it had to do with which side of the window you started dragging from, but that was quickly disproven when I managed to create new windows from every corner. This UX issue could potentially be fixed if the active window is highlighted BEFORE dragging while the cursor is in crosshair mode, indicating from which window the action begins. — asa9ohan, Mar 06 '24 at 08:05

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 22 '22 at 09:17

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Click the upper left corner of an editor and drag to merge it to another.

answered Jun 22 '22 at 09:17

Harry McKenzie

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How to close view windows?

6 Answers6

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