Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out in Nightly Firefox Labs 131

[asafko]

Hi folks,

Vertical tabs and a new sidebar experience that make multitasking and context-switching easier are now available in Nightly 131. To try them, update to the latest Nightly and go to Settings > Firefox Labs, and activate the Sidebar and Vertical tabs experiments.

After you do this, you will be able to see the new sidebar, but you will still need to add the sidebar icon to the toolbar to be able to expand vertical tabs. Click Customize toolbar in the toolbar right-click menu, and drag the sidebar icon to your toolbar. This is a temporary situation, and in the future the icon will be added to the toolbar automatically. 

A few things to keep in mind:

• This work is still very much in progress and has some rough edges, functionally and visually. You’ll see us improve and polish things over the coming months.
• We will be sharing our informal backlog of improvements in this post today, so you can get a sense for where we ultimately want these features to be.
• To design this first version, we conducted extensive research, talked to many Firefox users to understand their multitasking and context-switching needs, and prototyped extensively to find the best solutions to address them.

What we’re putting out there is something that we believe will help the majority of people using Firefox achieve their day-to-day tasks. We know there is no perfect solution for everyone and welcome your feedback to shape the direction we move forward in.

[fenjen]

I've been using Vertical Tabs since ~ 15 years and consider myself a power user. Here's what I think is extremely useful:

• Hierarchy Tabs like in TST (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)
• Mousewheel Switches Tabs (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab-mouse-wheel/)
• Minimize Tabs (click on active tab opens the previously open tab, repeatable)
• If at all planned, an Automatic Grouping of Tabs should be disableable as grouping can be highly confusing for people that keep a copy of their tab list in their minds

Vertical tabs combined with Mousewheel Switches Tabs will give you a super comfortable browsing experience, becauses to comfortably switch tabs, you just move the mouse a little to the left and use the mousewheel. (It's also a very good alternative when comparing tabs with Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown.)

[skagon]

I have to say that I'm against all of those.
Having said that, I think that the Mozilla guys should primarily focus on the basic functionality of the vertical tabs and make sure that it works quickly and efficiently.
The "improvements" you're suggesting, if they ever materialise, should come much, much later.

[TheTrebuchet]

A great feature, but few things in aesthetics term
it's a bit weird for the vertical tabs button to be offset to the right, should be on the vertical tab or right above it
second of all, when the firefox window usually has the round corners, shouldn't the opened tab space also have the rounded corners? or be separated from everything else in a more thoughtful manner?

[CapedCrusader]

Dear Firefox Development Team,

I’d like to suggest a few enhancements to improve the user experience:

1. Unify Sidebar Buttons: Consolidate the “Expand Sidebar,” “Customize Sidebar,” and “List All Tabs” buttons into a single, unified button, similar to the “Tab Actions Menu” in Microsoft Edge. This would streamline the interface, reduce visual clutter, and simplify navigation.
2. Centralized Sidebar Settings: Move sidebar customization options directly into the main Preferences menu. Centralizing these settings would make them more accessible and easier to manage.
3. Simplify Scrollbars for Tabs: Currently, there are two separate scrollbars: one for pinned tabs and another for other tabs. This setup makes it difficult to view all pinned tabs at once. Instead, consider having a single scrollbar for both pinned and other tabs, similar to the tab layout in Microsoft Edge. This would enhance usability and ensure all tabs are easily visible and accessible.
4. Keyboard Shortcut for Expanding/Collapsing Tabs: Add a keyboard shortcut to expand or collapse the tabs sidebar, similar to the functionality available in the Arc browser. This would make it quicker and easier for users to manage their tab view efficiently without relying solely on mouse interactions.
5. Automatic Expand/Collapse on Mouse Hover: Enable the tabs sidebar to automatically expand when the user hovers the mouse near it and collapse when the mouse moves away, similar to Microsoft Edge’s behavior. This dynamic interaction would enhance usability by reducing the need for manual clicks while maintaining a clean interface.
6. Tab Grouping/Workspaces: Introduce a tab grouping or workspace feature, allowing users to organize tabs into customizable categories or sessions. This would benefit users who multitask across different contexts (e.g., work, personal, research).
7. Improved Memory Management for Tabs: Introduce better memory management features that allow users to hibernate inactive tabs manually or automatically to free up system resources, similar to Edge’s “Sleeping Tabs.”

Thank you for considering these improvements to make Firefox a more efficient and intuitive browser!

[asafko]

Hi folks, 

Over the next couple of months, we will be testing an updated sidebar, its tools, and vertical tabs in the release version of Firefox. If you are using the release version, you might get early access to these features and get a nudge to try them out.

Only a portion of users in Firefox releases 133 and 134 will see this experience, helping us evaluate and improve the features. If you’re part of the experiment, we’d love for you to try this early version and share your thoughts. 

We’re also working on many improvements you’ve already requested, including: 

• Easier ways to close tabs in the collapsed sidebar (via an on-hover close button).
• Expanding the sidebar on hover.
• Reducing space used by tools in the expanded sidebar.
• Visually and functionally polishing the sidebar tools panels and browser layout in the vertical tabs mode. 

As usual, we appreciate your patience as we iron out the rough spots in the experience. I've also started a new thread for the release feedback, which you can find here.

[tilwiti]

Yay, can we opt-in in it?

[asafko]

Hi!

Not yet, unfortunately, as experiments pick people randomly to ensure the statistical significance of the results, but we are working on making some form of opt-in available very early in 2025.

[mpkossen]

You can enable it in about:config:

sidebar.revamp

[Pfize183]

For what is this setting?

sidebar.revamp

[mpkossen]

To opt-in to using the new sidebar that is hidden by default for most people. While some people may not care, I did a reinstall of my system and was missing my vertical tabs so had to figure out how to enable them again.

[TLHighbaugh]

I would like it a lot more if it were separate from the toolbar

[JC2]

Right now the option to use vertical tabs in a show/hide fashion is broken.
If you change the sidebar button to show/hide the sidebar and have it hidden, using any other sidebar(bookmarks/history/addons etc) will result in the sidebar being shown afterwards instead of being hidden.

[salt_mango_tree]

The new vertical tabs implementation is awesome. Eagerly waiting for the expand on hover to be implemented and tab groups to be polished. 


I would also like this corner to be rounded, it doesn't look good on any OS with rounded windows.

[avaunit02]

It's great so far! the one thing I'd like to change or configure is whether tabs opened from pinned tabs are inserted at the top or bottom. They're currently inserted at the top, which means I have to scroll all the way up to get to them. I'd like them to be added at the bottom of the sidebar / tab list.

[Uberprutser]

I believe vertical tabs are a bit of a hype these days 🙂 To each their own, and they might be useful if you got !own of those very wide screens. But for me, they are annoying and pretty useless!

[lfrigodesouza]

Hi.
I've started using vertical tabs on the latest Firefox version, and it's been working great! Thanks for all the work on that!

The only thing that would make it better would be to have an option to expand it on hover, so that we can have the maximum screen space for pages, as well as being able to see the tabs titles when trying to switch between them. It's also hard to close tabs when the vertical tabs are collapsed.

[EwaUlinska]

I don't like the sidebar option at all, but then again, I'm an autistic person who instinctively dislikes any new features. I would prefer an option to completely disable it and an old view of history, without having to close sidebar after opening history.

But please, I'm begging you: bring back the "sort by date AND website" function!! And not "when you get to it", but as soon as possible! I won't be able to find anything without this feature.

[bjherbison]

The sidebar is optional, you can turn it off. I have it off. And the "sort by date and site" still exists when you view History in the side bar. This might only appear once you turn off the vertical tabs.

The way I can turn it on and of is with about:preferences#experimental . There is a checkbox next to Vertical Tabs. (I'm using Firefox Nightly. That option doesn't show in in Release. I don't know what version you are using.)

[EwaUlinska]

I can only see a tiny handful of options in Firefox Laboratory preferences, with probably none of them having anything to do with vertical tabs. I have Firefox 133 and the sidebar option just appeared out of nowhere today, not even first thing in the morning.

[EwaUlinska]

As for the settings I have when opening sidebar settings... (Sorry, it might not correspond to the English version, my Firefox display language is Polish - because I'm used to it, even though I'm also a fluent English speaker.) Firefox tools - all "off" (should I set History to "on" to enable date & website sorting??), sidebar panel - display and hide sidebar, sidebar position - on the left, tab settings - horizontal tabs. Which would mean that I DON'T have "vertical tabs" on, but I still don't know how to disable sidebar and bring back old history sorting option.

[asafko]

Hi Ewa! My apologies for causing you inconvenience, and I totally understand the need to sort for website and date.

One quick fix that you can go for is to:

- type about:config in your search bar,

- accept the warning you will see, then in the search bar of the page that opens search for sidebar.revamp,

- change it to false by clicking the Toggle button on the right.

- you should be able to see the old sidebar after this, with all the History sorting options.

Also, please feel free to post questions/screenshots in Polish, I'm a fluent speaker (but it's faster for me to respond in English about technical matters).

[EwaUlinska]

Oh thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for. And earlier I panicked and tried to downgrade Firefox, only to discover that it would mean losing all history records... fortunately, I reinstalled version 133 and could go back to my previous user profile.

And to use an onometopoeic in Polish, because I don't really know an English equivalent: ufffff... ("What a relief")

[EwaUlinska]

Oh, and by the way... I already got used to using Ctrl-H to open history tab, but I would really like it if the option to open it by clicking was brought back. Now when I click the history button on top bar, there's no option to simply open it, only the most recent pages are displayed and a possibility to change settings.

[skagon]

I have to point out that the scrolling of the sidebar tabs is sluggish. However, the "List all tabs" drop-down list scrolls like a bullet. Please make sure you do something about the scrolling speed of the vertical tabs!
Note: other vertical tabs add-ons (VTR, Sideberry) all scroll very fast as well.

[kusuriya]

This is a absolute great start

A few user experience thoughts

• The tab bar should have a expand on mouseover option so its normally collapsed but when my mouse hovers over the tabs it expands so I can read the titles
• It would be nice to have this have an interface for container tabs
• resizing the tab bar is important
• tab workspaces would be a nice to have

[skagon]

There is also a weird thing with the now unified toolbar: there are two empty spaces, one at the very left, one at the right, between the control buttons (close, resize, minimise) and the rest. The left one, when the window is maximised, disappears. The right one remains. Waste of space and it looks like a bug.
Screenshot for reference.

[heftig]

I don't have an empty space on the left side, but the blank space on the right is needed to be able to drag the window, as there is no window title bar.

PS: The horizontal tab bar also has this space.

[EwaUlinska]

Blank spaces can be customised in Firefox settings (three lines icon - More tools - Customise toolbar, or however the option is called in English). You can get rid of unneeded blank spaces this way.

[heftig]

Unfortunately, this space is not part of the configurable area.

[skagon]

These spaces cannot be touched. Cannot be moved. Cannot be removed. They're just there.

[jscher2000]

---

@skagon wrote:

There is also a weird thing with the now unified toolbar: there are two empty spaces, one at the very left, one at the right, between the control buttons (close, resize, minimise) and the rest.

---

The title bar has "drag space" to allow moving a window when it's resizable without accidentally activating anything. On the left end, the space is created by this element:

<hbox class="titlebar-spacer" type="pre-tabs"></hbox>

That one has a CSS rule that hides it with display: none when it's not a resizable window.

The element on the right before the 3 buttons is:

<hbox class="titlebar-spacer" type="post-tabs"></hbox>

There's no similar rule to remove the post-tabs spacer in a maximized window. You could start a new Idea thread to shrink or eliminate that one.

[skagon]

Excellent info, thanks! About that new thread, I think I'll want until the vertical tabs thing has matured a bit more. Frankly, now that I know it's not a bug, I'm confident that, at some point, it'll be fixed. I'm more worried about the vertical tabs scrolling being sluggish like a wet sponge. THAT has to be fixed!

[stupidus]

Another horrible 'feature'.

And ofc you just had to fk the browser up just to enable it. GREAT.

[FirefoxConnect]

First, a huge thank you to the people who made this feature happen, I find it super useful!
I have some feedback:
- The history sidebar is less functional than the standard "library" history window, e.g., it would be great if one could choose to display the history at a gradually coarser granularity, just like the history window does it: Today's history, Yesterday's history, Last 7 days' history, This month's history, and so on.
- It's very nice that the history and bookmarks sidebars have keyboard shortcuts, and it would be convenient if the "AI chatbot" and "Tabs from other devices" sidebars would also have shortcuts.

[solid_brass]

It's your baby so I can only beg to deliver a button to hide this sidebar completely. I'm still missing it versions later und I guess not to be the only user who has no use for it at all.

[jscher2000]

You can set the Sidebars button to show/hide the sidebar rather than expand/collapse it. Use the gear button at the bottom of the Firefox 133 vertical button bar:

[Nomutile]

Clicked on the Vertical Tabs option in the pop-up announcing its availability.

I don't care for the vertical tabs arrangement at all.

I have spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to restore the tabs bar to a horizontal position at the top of the page. I have removed and re-installed Firefox twice.  I have clicked on "Restore Defaults."  No success.

There is NO selection option about tabs in the Firefox Labs section, as online instructions have indicated, so I won't be able to change it there.

I hope someone can add fix this ASAP.  I've used Firefox for years and would like to stay with it; but the Vertical Tabs are going to force me into the arms of Safari.

[sclem]

Hi, could you please clarify when you say that clicking on "Restore defaults" in the customize toolbar didn't reset the tabs to horizontal tabs... It'd help us figure out why that didn't work if you could add more details - what operating system you're on and if anything happened at all when clicking that button. A screencast would be helpful, as this is the first time I've heard of this not resetting vertical tabs to horizontal.

[Nomutile]

Operating System is macOS Sequoia 15.1.1

Sorry not to have screen shots to share; but, frankly, it was late, I was frustrated, and I was clicking on anything that seemed remotely helpful.  If memory serves me, the "Restore Default" option was presented as part of the new download/opening of Firefox.  Even though I selected that option, the page displayed the Vertical Tabs layout instead.

Here's another twist:  after I posted my comment, the horizontal tabs bar re-appeared.(?!)  The only thing different that I can account for is that -- in order to post my comment -- I had to receive a login link and log in to Mozilla.  It might be a coincidence; but after I did that, my beloved horizontal layout re-appeared.🤔

[sclem]

No worries and sorry this was confusing and frustrating. It sounds like we might need to make the onboarding clearer, since it sounds like you clicked the vertical tabs layout by mistake?

But I just noticed something, as you had mentioned you tried to get to Labs to turn it off. Are you using the Nightly version of Firefox or release version? (Nightly has a blue/purple logo and only Firefox Nightly has the sidebar in Labs whereas only Firefox release has the popup announcing vertical tabs).

It sounds like you're back to how you want your setup. But if you should find yourself in another state with the the sidebar/vertical tabs open and can't get out of it, it'd help us if you could share a screenshot - asafko and I were wondering if perhaps you didn't see the little gear icon on the bottom of the sidebar due to a theme you're using?

Because clicking that is one of the ways you can get back to horizontal tabs if you find yourself stuck again - see jscher2000's post.