Use This App for Picture-in-Picture Effect on Windows
You may want to use a spreadsheet when writing your report. Perhaps you want to watch a sporting event while you play a game. There are many reasons why you might want a window, or part of a window, to sit on top of everything else on your computer. The free Windows app OnTopReplica allows you to do just that.
To get started , download the latest version on Github – inside the Zip file you will find the MSI installer. The documentation states that the software works on Windows 7, 8 and 10, but I had no problems getting it to work on Windows 11. Run OnTopReplica and a gray window will open, floating on top of other windows. Right-click this gray box to view the settings.
Hover your mouse over the Select window and you can choose which window you want to recreate and pin it to the top. For example, I select a YouTube video that I am watching and the entire browser window opens.
You can drag this field anywhere on the screen. You can then click Select Region to see only a specific part of the window, such as the video itself. You can move the window and resize it as you wish – whatever is there will be scaled. If you wish, you can also make the window partially transparent. It’s very flexible.
The most obvious use for this is watching videos—after all, macOS has a feature specifically for that. But this app is much more flexible than that feature that only supports video and only in Safari. With it, you can pin a part of any window—for example, a diagram you’re writing about, or a presentation happening in a Zoom meeting that you’re just paying attention to. It’s up to you.
There are some disadvantages. For this to work, the window you pin to the top must be open, not minimized, and tabs aren’t supported—you can only pin what’s currently open in the active window on your device. However, if you’re willing to leave the window open for what you’re working on, it works great.