Netflix for Windows 10 nabs compact overlay mini-mode to watch movies while you work

Netflix Windows 10
Netflix Windows 10 (Image credit: Windows Central)

Perhaps Netflix was waiting for the Fall Creators Update to hit 90 percent of users, or maybe it was working out the kinds of its proprietary streaming service and compact overlay, but the feature is now available.

For those not familiar, compact overlap was introduced as a feature for developers with the Fall Creators Update. It let them add the ability for a video or music streaming app to get a mini-mode window that could float over other opened apps, but also leave some basic controls visible.

Netflix using compact overlay is a mini-mode viewer.

Netflix using compact overlay is a mini-mode viewer.

Microsoft's Music & TV app was one of the first and there's even a nifty third-party app that works for websites, but we have been waiting for Netflix – the most obvious beneficiary of such a feature – to adopt it.

Starting with version 6.59.265 released within the last few days users can now put Netflix into a compact overlay.

While the feature works, it does seem to cause some stuttering issues on a multi-monitor setup, and the app feels a tad sluggish. Perhaps more work needs to be done for optimization.

Either way, it's great to see such a useful feature finally arrive. Let's hope Hulu and Sling get around to adding the feature sometime this year too.

See Netflix on the Microsoft Store (opens in new tab)

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

36 Comments
  • The Netflix app is even good for those who say the Microsoft Store is useless
  • I don't get the Store comments. I have way more apps than I need, way more installed than I use. No different than on my android tablet.
  • I have the right amount of apps installed that I really use but I would love to see a better Instagram app, Procreate and some of the games would be nice.
    And most importantly Amazon Prime Instant Video and a good kindle reader since the desktop app sucks on tablets.
  • Dan, any inklings if Amazon will ever make prime video app available on PC? Also, getting this PiP working on Xbox would be nice too (Even though Mike Ybarra thinks we are crazy for asking for this feature :) https://twitter.com/XboxQwik/status/847129900746125312
  • No idea on Amazon, but relations between them and Microsoft seem to be going very well, so more possible now than a year ago. Maybe we'll hear more at Build in the coming weeks.
  • I pin the Amazon Prime Video site on my Start Screen. I don't see need for an app.
  • I did the same but let's bet honest the native apps on the other platforms are much better especially on tablets.
  • They'll announce the app just like iTunes 😆
  • Still waiting for this feature to come to Xbox and replace the old snap system that I only got to use once or twice.
  • Totally agree. this would be great on xbox
  • It would be even much better than the snap system.
  • Nice will be great. But Netflix app always crashes my video card driver every time I start a video so hopefully this doesn't make it even more unstable
  • I'm never going to get anymore 9 to 5 (in my case 11:30 to 3:00) work done. 😩
  • Silly question, but why doesn’t the Microsoft Store provide any details of updates for apps? For example the iOS App Store and others have a very visible section on the app page listing when the app was last updated as well as the update release notes. In fact you can easily bring up the version history that lists all the dates and release notes of previous updates!
  • I imagine it's because they don't want people to know how infrequently apps are updated in the store.
  • A developer once told me that this is extremely ****** on the MS store just like the search.
  • I do have the version 6.59.265 on my Win10 machine, but I cannot find anywhere how to set the compact mode!
  • There should be a new icon when you are watching something.
  • The Netflix UWP app is superb. With the right soundcard or HDMI, it will output full 5.1 on content that has it. The website can't do that and with any future PWA version it's unlikely too
  • Maybe. Doesn't the website stream now in 4K thru Edge? Seems pretty powerful. Same with HDR?
  • Microsoft has Dolby support in Edge so I'm sure a PWA app could do 5.1 and more.
  • I wish they would actually fix what's broken with the app. When I use the more episodes button, when you try to swipe to view later episodes, the entire view resets and starts from the beginning. The only way it works is if you scroll extremely slow 🙄
  • This has been happening here for a while too. Really annoying
  • That all seem to have been fixed 🙂
  • Still no Fluent Design...
  • It's Netflix. Big companies have their own design on all platforms.
  • Broken app, entire UI font change to that ugly Times New Roman when clicked the "Season" button. Already gave feedback months ago.
  • Try to repair it via the settings app or just reinstall it.
  • its bad feature
  • It's a bad comment
  • There goes my productivity 😁 Good to see they maintain the windows 10 app 👍
  • haha yeah, I counted about 3 updates this month two back to back 😁
  • I can't believe no one is complaining that there are no keyboard shortcuts to do anything (except-space bar to pause)! No jump forward or backward 5/10 seconds. No play at 1.5x or 0.5x speed. Doesn't this bother anyone else?
  • It looks like the Compact View application also referenced in this article is no longer available in the Microsoft Store.
  • Hey Dan shoot us a link to that wallpaper.
  • Hulu is overdue for an update.