4Zones User Manual

For 4Zones 0.10.70, October 2026. Samsung DeX on Android 12 or later; a phone or tablet in desktop mode, with or without a monitor.

4Zones is a window manager for Samsung DeX: it puts windows into the zones of a layout you pick, manages DeX desktops, and saves and restores whole arrangements of apps and documents. Everything can be driven from the keyboard, so the app itself need not be on the desk it is arranging. It needs no root, and nothing it reads or stores leaves your device.

1. Getting started

Put the device into DeX, connected to a monitor, or DeX on the device's own screen. 4Zones arranges DeX windows, so there is nothing for it to do outside desktop mode.
Give 4Zones window access (⚙ → Access). This is the connection it moves and resizes windows through, and there are two routes. Direct access needs nothing installed: 4Zones pairs with this device's own Wireless debugging, on the device itself. Shizuku is used instead if you already have it; Shizuku then allows 4Zones once and 4Zones does no pairing of its own. The page offers whichever route suits the device, and you can switch.
Turn on the keyboard shortcuts (⚙ → Keys) if you want keys. 4Zones sends you to Android Settings → Accessibility → 4Zones keyboard shortcuts, after showing you what the service does. This is only how your key presses are read; tapping a zone works without it.
- It does not read the content of your screen or any app, and does not record your typing. It does not ask Android for the permission that would allow either.
- It consumes only 4Zones' own shortcuts, so other apps do not also act on them.
- Android will list it as able to perform gestures. That capability is declared only because Samsung DeX otherwise stops delivering keyboard shortcuts to the service while you work on an external monitor. 4Zones never performs a gesture, tap or swipe for you.
Pick a layout on Layouts, then snap your first window (section 2).

What pairing grants. Pairing gives 4Zones the same access a computer has over ADB. 4Zones uses it only to read and arrange your windows and desktops. You can remove it at any time in Settings → Developer options → Wireless debugging → Paired devices.

Android gives Wireless debugging a new address every time it is switched on. 4Zones finds it again by itself after a reboot, a few seconds after the phone starts.

Every screen you open from Settings (and the zone picker, the diagnostics and the rest) carries a bar across the top with its name and a back arrow, so there is always a way out that does not need a gesture.

The main screen has five pages: Desktops · Workspaces · Links · Windows · Layouts, and ⚙ for Settings, whose pages are Access · Keys · Windows · Backup · About.

2. Snapping a window

A zone is one rectangle of the layout that is currently active. Snapping puts a window into one.

By tapping: open Windows ("Snap a window") and tap a zone. The window you are using moves 5 seconds later, so bring it to the front if it is not already. The order does not matter: focus the window first and tap second, or the reverse.
By key: Alt + Win + 1–4 snaps the window in front to zones 1 to 4. There is no delay and no need to leave the window.

The delay exists only for the tapping route. It is the time you need to get back to your window, and it is yours to set: ⚙ → Windows, 1 to 10 seconds. If you work by key, the delay never applies.

Zones are numbered in reading order: left to right, then top to bottom. On a four-zone layout that is top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right.

3. Layouts

Layouts holds 34 layouts in four families, each card drawn as the shape it makes:

Family	Count	Examples
Columns	9	Halves · Two-thirds · Thirds · Wide centre · Master + two · Quarters · Cascade
Rows	9	The transpose of each column layout: Halves (1/2 over 1/2), Thirds, Quarters, Cascade
Mixed	15	Quadrants · Master + pair · Sidebar + main + pair · Banner + three · Full screen
Freeform	1	Freeform, no split at all, for moving windows by hand

Tap a card to make that layout active. The active card carries the word "Active" and an accent outline, and it is the layout every snap uses.
Favourites sit in a row at the top of the page, and on the Desktops page. Add or remove one from the card.
Each desktop remembers the layout you last used on it, so a desktop you return to is laid out as you left it.
Any layout can be given its own key (section 10). None has one by default.

4. Desktops

Desktops lists every DeX desktop on every screen, with the current one marked Current, and the windows on each shown as icons.

Switch by tapping a desktop, or with Ctrl + Win + 1–4.
Add one with +, or Ctrl + Win + =.
Close one with ×. 4Zones asks first.
Next desktop and Previous desktop exist as actions with no key until you give them one.

DeX allows four desktops, across all screens together. Not four per screen; four in total. At four, + says so rather than failing quietly, and a workspace set to open on a new desktop cannot do it until you close one by hand.

DeX also keeps at least one desktop per screen, so the only desktop on a screen cannot be closed. Desktops survive a reboot.

The numbers are DeX's own, not 4Zones': DeX sorts the desktops across all screens and numbers them from 1, so on a two-screen setup Desktop 2 may be on either screen. Where there is more than one screen, 4Zones says which: "Desktop 2 · external screen".

5. Moving every window at once

On the Desktops page, Send everything here to… offers each of the other desktops by name. Pick one and every window on this desktop but 4Zones itself moves there.

The desktop you emptied stays, and still counts toward DeX's four. Close it with × if you do not want it.
4Zones reports what happened ("7 of 7 windows reached Desktop 2.") and names anything left behind.
Minimised windows that cannot be matched to a desktop are left where they are.

6. Workspaces

A workspace is a photograph of a desk: which apps were open, which documents they held, and where each window sat. Restoring it builds the desk again.

Arrange the windows you want on a DeX desktop.
On Workspaces, press Save this arrangement (at the top of the page).
If the device has more than one screen, choose which screen you are saving.
Include in this workspace lists every window it found, each with a tick. Untick anything you do not want. Windows are tagged minimised or full screen where they are, and a full-screen window can be saved as Full screen or as Maximised.
Name it, and it appears as a card.

Each card carries Save again, which replaces that workspace with the desk as it is now, the quickest way to keep one up to date, plus Rename and Delete.

A workspace holds the document, not just the app, wherever the window names one. A window opened from Links is remembered by its page or file, so a restored workspace comes back with that document and not merely with the app that shows it.

7. Restoring a workspace

Tap a workspace card, or press its key, and 4Zones opens its apps and puts each window back where it was. Two settings decide where that happens (⚙ → Windows):

Restore into	What it does
Current desktop	The default. The apps open on the desktop you are on.
A new desktop when the limit is reached	The current desktop, unless that would take it past Windows per desktop; then a new desktop is made first.
Always a new desktop	A new desktop every time, and the limit is never consulted.

Windows per desktop is No limit by default, and can be set up to 20. Above 0, 4Zones refuses to open a workspace that would take the desktop past that number.

Because DeX allows only four desktops in total, Always a new desktop will eventually have nowhere to put one. 4Zones says so rather than restoring into the wrong place; close a desktop and try again.

8. Folders

Once there are more workspaces than fit comfortably on one page, group them.

Add folder is at the top of the Workspaces page. Name it, then Add workspaces and tick the ones that belong in it.
A bar along the top switches between All Workspaces and each folder.
Find a workspace by name filters the page.
A folder can be renamed or deleted; deleting a folder does not delete the workspaces in it.

9. Links

Links is a list of things to open in their own window: web pages, apps' own links and app shortcuts. It exists because a workspace is a photograph: a link has to be a window before it can be in one, and Open is what puts it there.

Share it to 4Zones, the quickest way, and it works from anywhere. In Settings, a browser, a file list, any app with a share button: share, choose Add to 4Zones Links, check the name, press Add. The address arrives filled in. Nothing is saved until you press Add.
Add a link, at the top of the Links page: a Name so you can tell it apart on the card, and an Address. The address can be a web page's, starting https://, or an app's own link, such as fourscreenshots://region.
Add from an app… asks an app for one of the shortcuts it offers: a particular conversation, a specific document, a saved search. Pick an app, pick a shortcut, name it.
Open puts the link in its own window. Arrange it, then save the arrangement on Workspaces. It will remember the document, not just the app.
Rename is on every row. Delete is on the links you added yourself: deleting asks first, because it also takes the link's key and anything 4Zones learned about the document behind it. A link one of my other apps publishes has no Delete. That app decides whether to offer it, and 4Zones reads the list fresh each time.
Any link can be given a key, so it opens with one chord and no visit to 4Zones.

Sharing takes an address. An app shortcut still comes from Add from an app…: if you share one, 4Zones says so rather than showing it, because the shortcut carries account details that should not appear on screen.

Some apps give back only one window. Ask WhatsApp for a conversation twice and you get the same window twice. Where an app has a web version, a web page link often behaves better for a second instance.

10. Shortcut keys

⚙ → Keys lists every action 4Zones can do, grouped, with the key bound to it. Tap a row to record a new key combination: hold the modifiers, press the key, and Save.

Action	Default
Snap to zone 1–4	`Alt` + `Win` + `1`–`4`
Switch to desktop 1–4	`Ctrl` + `Win` + `1`–`4`
Add a desktop	`Ctrl` + `Win` + `=`
Next desktop · Previous desktop	Not set
Each of the 34 layouts	Not set
Restore each saved workspace	Not set
Open each link	Not set
Open 4Zones on a page (Desktops, Workspaces, Links, Windows, Layouts)	Not set
Send diagnostics	Not set

Each "Open 4Zones on …" brings 4Zones to the front on that page, on the screen the key came from. A row can have its key removed, and Reset to defaults lists what it will change before it does it.

A long list is searchable: filter by text, by modifier, by key, by folder, or by keyboard. Keys you have taken over shows, in one place, every key 4Zones is now answering, so a key that has stopped doing its usual job is easy to find.

11. Key options

All three are off by default, and all three are on the Keys page.

Expert keys. On, almost any key can be a shortcut on its own. Off, 4Zones keeps you to combinations that are safe to take over.
Modifier keys on their own. On, Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Win or Caps Lock tapped by itself can be a shortcut.
Accept long key press as shortcut in addition to short press. On, a key can do one thing tapped and another held. Hold it about half a second while recording, and it is listed as a long press.

Which keyboard shortcuts work from decides whether a key fires from any keyboard or only from the one it was recorded on. Record a shortcut while the keyboard you mean is connected, and 4Zones can keep it to that keyboard, which helps when a phone, a dock and a Bluetooth keyboard are all in play.

Show a notice when a key works is yours to turn on. With it off, a key that could not do the thing still says why.

12. Shortcuts outside 4Zones

Home screen. Add a 4Zones workspace shortcut from your launcher. Tapping it opens that workspace on your DeX desktop, exactly as the card does.
Other apps. ⚙ → Access → Let other apps run shortcuts (off by default) lets an app 4Zones recognises, such as 4Dictate, switch desktops, snap windows and run your other shortcut actions for you. Only apps 4Zones recognises can use this at all: an app has to be signed with a certificate 4Zones already knows, so a general gesture or macro app cannot ask through this door however the switch is set. It also works only while 4Zones keyboard shortcuts are on, and it is off until you turn it on.
Family apps. A link saved from another of my apps can have a key like any other link. With 4Home paired, one key can turn a light on, run a scene or set the heating; 4Zones passes 4Home the link you chose and nothing else.
Gesture and macro apps reach 4Zones the other way, by pressing one of your shortcut keys, or by opening a workspace shortcut. Nothing needs turning on for that beyond the keys themselves.

13. Settings

Page	Holds
Access	How 4Zones moves windows, and who else may ask: the window access connection, and Let other apps run shortcuts.
Keys	Your shortcut keys, and the service that reads them (sections 10–11).
Windows	Two groups. Snapping, holding the snap delay and Use the full height of this screen. Restoring a workspace, holding Windows per desktop and Restore into.
Backup	Your settings as one file you keep (section 14).
About	The version running now and when it was built, Send full diagnostics…, and third-party notices.

A page with something still to set up carries a dot on its tab. Use the full height of this screen (off by default) lets a zone run under the DeX taskbar on the device's own screen, where Android may refuse. If it does, 4Zones says so rather than pretending.

14. Backup

⚙ → Backup. Your workspaces, favourite layouts, shortcut keys and snap delay, as one file you choose where to keep. Nothing about this device's setup or pairing is in it.

A backup can be imported on another device, with one thing to expect: a shortcut you recorded against a particular keyboard carries that keyboard's name with it, so on a device where that keyboard is not attached the key is listed but will not fire until you record it again or set it to work from any keyboard (section 11).

Export… writes 4zones-settings.json wherever you say.
Import… shows exactly what will change, and what it will not import, before you choose Keep or Replace.
Save my settings automatically. After a change, 4Zones writes a copy to a folder you choose on this device, and keeps the last 5 copies. The page says how long ago the last save was, and says plainly if a save has failed and why.
With automatic saving off, the page tells you when your settings have changed since they were last saved, and offers Save now….

Android does not allow an app to be given your Downloads folder or the root of your storage. Choose or make a folder of your own.

15. Troubleshooting

Problem	Try
Nothing snaps or resizes	⚙ → Access. After a reboot, Wireless debugging has a new address, press Start once. On the Shizuku route, start Shizuku: 4Zones cannot start it.
Keys do nothing	Android Settings → Accessibility → 4Zones keyboard shortcuts: switch it off and on again. Tapping a zone works regardless.
"DeX allows four desktops, and there are four."	That is DeX's limit across all screens. Close a desktop with ×.
A new desktop was not made	Same limit. A workspace set to Always a new desktop will refuse until a desktop is free.
A restored workspace opened the app but not the document	Open the document from Links first, then Save again. That is what teaches 4Zones which document the window holds.
Desktop numbers are not what you expect	They are DeX's, sorted across every screen. 4Zones names the screen when there is more than one.
A key you need has been taken over	⚙ → Keys → Keys you have taken over, then Remove key.

To report a problem, note the time and send ⚙ → About → Send full diagnostics… to [email protected]. 4Zones does not send it for you: you see the whole report first, and nothing leaves the device until you press Send. It contains the names of apps you had open, their window layout and any workspace names you typed. Read it before you send it, and check the recipient, because some ways of sharing replace it.

16. Privacy

There is no server, no account, no analytics and no advertising. 4Zones connects to one thing, your own device's Wireless debugging service, on the device itself, and every address it connects to is checked to be one of that device's own.

The accessibility service that reads your shortcut keys does not read screen content, does not record typing, and never performs a gesture for you. See section 1 for why Android nevertheless lists that capability. The only thing 4Zones ever sends anywhere is a diagnostic report you have read and pressed Send on yourself.

See the 4Zones privacy policy.