Forests are experiencing increasing drought stress, which negatively impacts the health of individual trees. Forest managers can thin forests, selectively cut down individual trees, in an attempt to make more water available for the remaining trees. What is unclear is how this practice impacts forests where multiple tree species co-occur. We performed a series of simulations that show the benefits of thinning vary substantially across tree species within forests. We also show that improved growth after thinning does not indicate that trees were spared from drought stress. These two outcomes are largely uncorrelated.