this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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I know this is old news by now, but I was not sure how to activate vertical tabs on all of my browsers. It certainly is not obvious, so I wanted to include the instructions here in case anyone else wants to try it out.

Type about:config into the address bar of Firefox. You'll be greeted with a warning that you are accessing advanced settings - click "Accept the Risk and Continue." Search for the boolean preference sidebar.verticalTabs and set to true. That's it! Enjoy your vertical Tabs!

Edit: You may also need to set sidebar.revamp to true if it is not already/automatically set.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago

I like it better than the horizontal tabs, but it's still got nothing on the Tree Style Tabs extension. With that you can group tabs together, collapse trees, close trees, etc. Makes it much easier to keep things organized

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wow, I had no idea this was already built in! Thank you!

I wonder why this feature is "Obscured" like this, maybe it's still in beta?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Yeah, pretty sure, it hasn't been officially announced yet, because it is still under development.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

They take too much screen space, and my muscle memory is built on horizontal tabs, 2500 of them

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

They take up the mostly-unused horizontal screen space, though, whereas the vertical space that it frees up is far more precious to me. And I get to see most of the tab titles as a bonus!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

On my 1080p display it's taking up too much space, but on an ultrawide it's perfect use of the additional real estate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I have four 40" cheap 4k tvs, I split them in roughly 6 sections

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I usually keep it in the "icon" view which is pretty space efficient. When you activate the vertical tabs, it also generates a toggle at the top of the window that lets you expand the tabs. I find it is better on smaller screens than the standard horizontal tabs personally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I used some css tweak to display a Sidebery on mouseover. But after the latest Firefox update it broke.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nice, wheres my tab groups?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

There is still no built-in solution for nested/tree-like groups, but for creating simple groups Ctrl+N has served me for many years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ctrl n is just new tab isn't it? Honesty in the browser tab grouping isn't as critical to me. On my phone where I open too many tabs it would be nice to group them so my random ADHD lookups are grouped together.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

New window, not a new tab, which is essentially a tab group. Not an option on a mobile though, you're right.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, Ctrl t is new tab. New window idea is a good work around.

[–] Codilingus 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's an additional option I have set to true, and not sure what else it provides, but it's: sidebar.revamp

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks! I added it to the post.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

You damn degenerate vertical tab lovers

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I personally prefer Sidebery, but glad they're finally putting this feature in as a standard feature

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Sideberry is good, but you end up with tabs in both places. This option allows you to reclaim the vertical space without need for messing with the chrome css stuff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

For anyone interested, Firefox-based browser Floorp (terrible name) has had tab groups and vertical tabs for a while now.

I've been using it for a while now and it's nice and stable.

[–] TriflingToad 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'm fancy of the 'Zen' fork. However I just can't get myself to switch off of Firefox for some reason. Idk why, it just works™️ for me

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I did use it for a while, but it lags in updates and is missing a feature or two that I needed.

Overall it's great and underrated (or under-represented).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Nice! I’ve been running the nightly for this, looking forward to switching back to regular Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Also available on LibreWolf with a toggle at about:config.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Helpful to know! I assume it's the same or similar?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

It’s a fork of Firefox that enhances privacy/security.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

They really should have a browser that can have side by side sites so I don't have to keep doing that in the OS. Maybe I should just invent one. I don't know about anyone else but almost all of my workflows at this point are one side reference material and the other side what I'm working on.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

There is a very good addon that does this. Tiles WE It toggles splitting your browser in 2/3/4/6 windows tiled, or custom layouts. Also fancyzone and altsnap are great tiling manager https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tile-tabs-we/

Also what is this https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tiled-tab-groups/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll have to give that a look, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

There is a learning curve, but if that's something you use often enough to remembers all tge capabilities and quirks then it's great. Especially combined with a screen zone manager like altsnap and fancyzone

[–] ted 5 points 1 month ago

Zen browser, a Firefox fork trying to imitate Arc (chromium).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Opera can do this, but it's chromium

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

There's the Side View extension, perhaps?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can but strangely enough not using them is apparently something I can't do, as FF refuses to hide the vertical bar.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Check the link. It includes instructions for disabling it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Unfortunately they cannot yet be resized on the fly, as instead some vertical-tab extensions allow you to do. But it's a step in the right direction!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Useless without tree and bookmarking/opening as tree.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Tab groups are coming soon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

If you open a new tab from a group, it opens in the same group.

It works is a tree, besides being one-level only.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago