Chrome OS has spent years reaching feature parity with traditional operating systems, and one of the last major missing features is virtual desktops. On Windows, macOS, and most flavors of Linux, you can create multiple workspaces with their own instances of applications and switch between them quickly. Virtual desktops arrived in Chrome OS Canary earlier this month, and now it's a bit closer to rolling out to everyone.

First, Virtual Desks (Google's name for virtual desktops) has moved up from Chrome OS 77 to Chrome OS 76, meaning it's now available in the Beta channel — you no longer have to risk switching to the Dev or Canary channels to try it out. See the below video from our friends over at About Chromebooks if you've never seen it in action before.

Second, a handful of keyboard shortcuts are being added to make using Virtual Desks much easier. The shortcuts only recently showed up in a code commit, so they aren't available yet, but here's what they look like in the code right now:

  • Create a deck: Ctrl+Search + =
  • Remove a deck: Ctrl+Search + –
  • Activate a deck to the right (if any): Ctrl+Search + ] 
  • Activates a desk to the left (if any): Ctrl+Search + [
  • Move the active window to a deck to the right (if any): Ctrl+Search+Shift+] 
  • Move the active window to the deck to the left (if any): Ctrl+Search+Shift+[

As someone who uses virtual desktops every day on other platforms, it's great to see Chrome OS finally getting them.

Source: About Chromebooks