Let us say we have a 1-by-2 subplot and we plot some graphics inside as follows:
subplot(1,2,1)
surf(peaks(20))
subplot(1,2,2)
surf(peaks(20))
You could just extract the position of the first plot and use on the second. MATLAB automatically moves the colorbar to the right when rescaling.
f1=figure(1);clf;
s1=subplot(1,2,1);
surf(peaks(20));
s2=subplot(1,2,2);
surf(peaks(20));
hb = colorbar('location','eastoutside');
%% # Solution:
s1Pos = get(s1,'position');
s2Pos = get(s2,'position');
s2Pos(3:4) = [s1Pos(3:4)];
set(s2,'position',s2Pos);
%% # Alternative method. Brute force placement
set(s1,'Units','normalized', 'position', [0.1 0.2 0.3 0.6]);
set(s2,'Units','normalized', 'position', [0.5 0.2 0.3 0.6]);
set(hb,'Units','normalized', 'position', [0.9 0.2 0.05 0.6]);
This is just what I was looking for. After implementing Vidar's automatic solution I came up with a simplification. Get the position of the far right axes BEFORE adding the colorbar, and then just reset the squeezed position to the original:
f1=figure(1);clf;
s1=subplot(1,2,1);
surf(peaks(20));
s2=subplot(1,2,2);
surf(peaks(20));
s2Pos = get(s2,'position');
hb = colorbar('location','eastoutside');
set(s2,'position',s2Pos);