topic Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136 in Discussions

Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

asafko — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 18:43:59 GMT

Hi folks! The updated sidebar and vertical tabs are now rolled out and available to all release users on Firefox 136.

How to enable it
Go to Firefox Settings → General → Browser Layout and check Show sidebar. Then, choose the settings icon in the sidebar to customize which tools appear. You can turn on vertical tabs from sidebar settings or simply right-click on the Firefox toolbar or tab strip and select Turn on Vertical Tabs.

Firefox Settings: Browser layout

Customize sidebar options

Key improvements

✅ Horizontal tab users can now hide and show the sidebar with one click using the sidebar toolbar button.

✅ Sidebar settings have been streamlined, making customization easier.

✅ Close vertical tabs in one click without expanding them. The close button now appears when hovering over a tab favicon.

✅ We’ve removed auto-collapse behavior of vertical tabs, as it proved cumbersome for many folks.

What’s next?

We’re working on more improvements to enhance the sidebar and vertical tabs experience. Some top priorities include:

Remembering your last opened sidebar panel. When you hide the sidebar and then reopen it, the last opened panel will already be expanded. We hope to ship this as soon as Firefox 137 (April 1).
More sorting options for history and better keyboard navigation, to match the functionality of the previous sidebar version.
Expanding vertical tabs on hover for easier navigation.

As usual, we appreciate your patience and continued use as we refine these features and experiment to help us get to a better, more polished experience.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

phelpsm90 — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:02:04 GMT

When will there be the option to put new wallpapers in the new tab of Firefox android?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

frshaad — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 21:18:36 GMT

Cool feature. I like the implementation. With vertical tabs, the need for a shortcut to quickly search and jump to another tab is felt more than ever. I know you can do it with cmd + L and then % (on mac), but a shorter and easier shortcut would be great. And of course, it doesn't need to clear the current url, messing it up.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Kvin — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 21:45:19 GMT

Hi, thank you, that's good, but would like to see the sidebar have the following improvements

Ability to remove, add and move buttons such as history, bookmarks, etc. with the mouse.

Ability to set website pages to open in the sidebar.

Displaying vertical tabs + horizontal tabs simultaneously.

A download button, in addition to the history and bookmark buttons.

New sidebar should be enabled by default.
Thank you!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Kvin — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 21:49:17 GMT

Yes, I agree, there is a lack of the ability to choose your own wallpaper, both in firefox on the phone and in firefox on the PC.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Unpackage — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 08:45:39 GMT

Thank you very much for introducing this excellent feature. For general users like me, the current features work very well, but there's just one last feature missing: auto-expanding/collapsing the sidebar when the mouse hovers in/out of it. Currently, it's inconvenient to operate small tabs in the sidebar, yet keeping the sidebar permanently expanded takes up too much display space. I hope this feature can be pushed out as quickly as possible.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

nlcommercial — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 11:48:04 GMT

Hello,

While I appreciate the new functionality (to some extent), there is a need for improvement, specifically regarding the side bookmarks panel, which is always open/expanded when you start Firefox, regardless of the setup when you closed it (i.e. side bookmarks closed/collapsed). This happens even if the "sidebar" is disabled/unticked in the Firefox settings or if "bookmarks" is disabled/unticked in the sidebar settings.

Having the side bookmarks panel always open is a waste of screen space when it is not needed, and it is frankly inconvenient to have to close it every time you open Firefox. I do not know whether this is a bug or an oversight in the functionality, but a fix or update would be welcome (e.g. auto-hide or last setup/view recall).

Thank you.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Jon — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 15:26:12 GMT

@phelpsm90 & @Kvin we have separate threads for those requests - this discussion is focused on the launch of the new sidebar and vertical tabs. Here are the links to those other threads:

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Synchro — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 16:05:28 GMT

Good news!

As a next step, will it be possible to hide add-ons' icons from the sidebar?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

zalizo — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 17:49:51 GMT

It became incredibly convenient. Will you add a customize sidebar feature, similar to what has already been done with the toolbar? I would like to see the translator and note/flow buttons there

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Skywind — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 02:09:24 GMT

Glad to see so much progress has been made. Thumbs up for you all!

But the ability to remove the add-on icons to the left bottom corner of the sidebar is a must. I hope this could be realized soon!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Lohikaarme_91 — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 19:20:45 GMT

Ability to remove customize sidebar button. The same option is under right click.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Astral — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 04:27:06 GMT

I need it!hha

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Astral — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 04:29:41 GMT

It would be useful if in a future version we could pin websites to the sidebar. I'm currently using the Side View extension instead, but it doesn't allow you to switch between desktop and Android UA, and it doesn't allow you to easily open popular websites.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

myspace — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 13:58:52 GMT

Looks good thanks. I really like being able to easily rearrange the pinned tabs. The only thing I'm missing from Tree Style Tabs is the ability to nest tabs.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

eknobl — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 23:51:49 GMT

The the new sidebar with vertical tabs looks great. It would be cool to be able to choose which extensions show in the sidebar. Also, to be able to close tabs with a double click.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

broman_pl — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 02:24:06 GMT

Next step is bookmarks toolbar on a side 🙂

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

maestroj — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 03:56:14 GMT

I would love to see a tree tab structure, something like sidebery!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

azumukupoe — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 09:30:10 GMT

So many times, I try to switch to a tab, only to accidentally click the close button. The button is too big.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

aronmandos — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 13:08:57 GMT

Please give the option to remove the close button again, it makes switching tabs more difficult and i now constantly accidentally close tabs. I use the middle mouse button to close tabs and would like to remove the close button.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

jejerjajojuj — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 14:47:28 GMT

As long as "customize toolbar..." remains, you'd think it would still be on all the nav bars. Top, side . . . whichever. Just "customize..." or "customize bars..." and, well, it would have to actually work on the sidebar, too. For legacy reasons, I guess, the sidebar and the bar(s) on top were not really doing the same things, before, but now it seems like they're just preferences within the same "domain" (in a math sense, not networking).

I'm not saying it's like "bad" in some really clear way, but it does sort of betray that the app is sort of between two worlds, right now. Like there were two different ideas of how people will be customizing their browser, and some committee couldn't decide, so they made a weird compromise where both things exist and have little coordination between each other.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

big9 — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 15:28:48 GMT

Great, enjoying it so far. It would be great if the top of the window is modified to be 'dragable' (just like in MS edge) when in fullscreen mode.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

geoffreydebelie — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 15:27:48 GMT

I really would like the ability to hide the vertical tabs. I enabled vertical tabs because then the horizontal tabs disappear, but I want to use my custom vertical tabs extension (for example Tab Center Reborn). Having vertical tabs twice is overkill.

Is there a userChrome.css tweak?

Search field inside the sidebar to look for tabs.

Ability to show/hide the mute/audio overlays, especially needed when using the extension Auto Mute Tab

Ability to hide the close overlay button, I can already close tabs with middle click.

Ability to hide the new tab button.

Hover should display the URL.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Propheticus — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 16:37:00 GMT

Love the fact Firefox now has (native) vertical tabs. Two wishes:

Tabbed sidebar to have separate pages of tabs, possibly with default container associated (like Zen's workspaces).
The ability to move the sidebar to the right, with the vertical tabs on the left.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:23:46 GMT

The implementation is awesome, Thank you, Firefox team!, now I would like to have a better transition between "only bookmarks toolbar in new tab page" so bookmarks toolbar don't take space of the sidebar with vertical tabs enabled and when disappears after clicking in a page you don't get a weird resize of the web view page and the sidebar that make it feeling a little clunky.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Stockholm1628 — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 21:52:43 GMT

I HATE this so much. Why the hell is is on the wrong side???? For years, we have been trained to see the tabs as a drop down on the RIGHT side, not the left... and I dont see any option to change it.

Why has this been FORCED on Firefox users? I am finding very little reason to use firefox, as I preferred non-collapsed titles in a horizontal lauyout. I do a lot of research, and the vertical is annoying as all hell and it takes up so much screen real estate if I want to see window titles. I prefer having a slim bar at the top.

MAKE THE TAB LAYOUT a CHOICE. Forcing users into one random persons preferences is the height of condescension. No, there are people who do NOT like this new layout, and even worse, not even given the choice. Just waking up and having awful UI forced on us.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Qlaras — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 23:05:49 GMT

In 'Customize Sidebar' -> Sidebar settings-> under 'Vertical Tabs' there is a 'Hide tabs and sidebar' button. 'Hide tabs and sidebar' does only appear once Vertical Tabs are enabled.

You can undo it by clicking the 'Show Sidebar' icon in the top left corner (Or using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+ALT+Z).

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Qlaras — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 23:06:55 GMT

You can move the sidebar to the right. Under 'Customize Sidebar' there is an option for exactly that!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

maestroj — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 23:09:31 GMT

This is why we can't have nice things. There's a proper way to ask for a change.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Qlaras — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 23:10:18 GMT

Two of your complaints are fixable under 'Customize Sidebar.'

1) You can disable Vertical Tabs entirely (can also do this by right-clicking on the sidebar button in the top left corner and select 'Disable Vertical Tabs.')

2) There is an option to 'Move sidebar to the right.'

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

sephigruen — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 08:50:33 GMT

Happy to see expand on hover as a high priority! Related to that, I'd love to see the option to make the expanded sidebar float. Right now it shifts the layout of the website and on a small screen like my netbook's that's a hassle.

I already asked for this in the old thread, but this one is the place to go now, so I guess i'ts alright?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

lovelyjubbly — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 10:13:04 GMT

Just came to say I'm really enjoying this feature, I'm getting previous vertical real estate back. The ability to move the sidebar to the right is thoughtful too, I didn't see that in Edge's implementation; despite Edge's reputation I find its space-saving features above other browsers, now on par with Firefox.

Looking forward to the "Expanding vertical tabs on hover" feature in the future!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

geoffreydebelie — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 11:19:41 GMT

I can't hide the small sidebar (=native vertical tabs), while also hiding the horizontal tabs. That was what I was trying to say.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

geoffreydebelie — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 11:26:24 GMT

Indeed, it makes sense to add a toolbar of 2px so the window can easily be dragged.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

geoffreydebelie — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 11:45:42 GMT

Apparently, using userChrome.css my problem is solved

sidebar-main{
display: none !important;
}

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

aDena — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 20:47:24 GMT

I've been trying out vertical tabs for a few days now and I'm getting used to them.

It's true that it gives you more space to navigate!

I do have a few criticisms, though: for videos (like YouTube), the "mute" button takes up too much space and is often missclicked, also I'd prefer a play/pause button instead.

Customization of vertical tabs is too weak, and should be made possible by customizing the existing toolbar.

Unrelated to vertical tabs, but still in the same topic : following on from the "space savings", I'd really appreciate a new display option for the personal bar and toolbar that would display them when the mouse is over it (at the top for me), like the Windows taskbar.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 18:50:30 GMT

I can't minimize my sidebar(vertical tabs) into just icons when "Hide tabs and sidebar" is checked.

I want the sidebar to show only icons and be hideable using Alt + Ctrl + Z even when "Hide tabs and sidebar" is checked.

I hope this feature is implemented

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Aliday — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 11:33:55 GMT

Hello! I use FF at least from version 2 or 3.
I like old behavior when "show sidebars" button closes and opens last sidebar. Now it closes current sidebar and reopen nothing. If i click it again it opens the left small panel where I should make my old choice again.

I have and an idea how to make it better for new and old users:

Can it save it's status when I hide it using "show sidebar" button and reopen last panel if it was opened when I hided side bar previous time?

if it had opened panel - open it gain
if it hadn't any open panel - show only small button column?

A new users will not hide whole panel this way, so its not a problem for them
a new behavior really make me mad, so I have reverted it with sidebar.revamp = false in about:config

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:34:31 GMT

Hey,

The new Sidebar look good but if you live in Poland as I am and have Polish as input language, the new shortcuts (Ctrl+Alt+Z and X) won't work since Alt+Z is special character (Ż) same with Alt+X (Ź).

Soo for now I've disabled it completely and may by come back when this feature is production ready.

Edit: For clearance I've tested it on clean Win11 system with Firefox 136.0.1. With English language input work flawless but the moment I've changed to Polish it stopped. I don't know how you handle inputs but something is definitely wrong.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Aliday — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:17:41 GMT

Windows and almost all programs have such hot keys, how do you handle them?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Agentvirtuel — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:07:00 GMT

Hello

Take a look at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/add-option-to-hide-x-from-tabs-on-sidebar/idc-p/90232

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

MasterMan — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 15:50:49 GMT

Or to be able to arbitrarily/manually select which addons are shown on the sidebar (either separate from the top bar, or synced with it)

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Astral — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 17:33:25 GMT

I like Zen sidebar,to be honest, I'd love to see the sidebar optimized in the direction of zen: more freedom of sidebar customization (drag and drop extensions or tool ICONS into the sidebar, and the "mute" button takes up too much space,I wish it was as small and beautiful as zen.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Astral — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 12:29:08 GMT

I updated Nightly to the latest version, and I'm happy with the "mute" buttons now.But when the "Expanding vertical tabs on hover" function is disabled, it will revert to the old style, which may be a bug?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

JoeySav — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 21:54:24 GMT

Edge has a double click to close a tab feature that is a toggle option that I really like and got used to and miss on firefox. Could that be added at some point? I tried looking for an extension , but couldn't find one that did what I was looking for.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

vale-1041 — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 03:51:00 GMT

The vertical sidebar is... alright. I don't think I'll be using the feature as I enjoy the legacy layout. One thing that will definitely prevent me from using it is the removal of the "Forget about this site" feature from the history on the sidebar:

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 04:49:43 GMT

Hello

I am on latest version of Firefox Desktop on Linux. (v 136.0.2)

I am experimenting with new vertical tabs options. (kind of started liking it)

I am also using many extensions like Bitwarden, Noscript, Greasemonkey etc.

When I see my sidebar, I see Bitwarden icon on bottom left, just above settings (gear) icon.

I dont see option / checkbox to remove Bitwarden icon from sidebar.

I also have Bitwarden icon on top-left Toolbar. I like it there.

How do I remove Bitwarden icon from sidebar, as I do not want two icons of same extension to be visible.

Also curious why is it that only Bitwarden icon is appearing and not Noscript and Greasemonkey?

Dont know if this is Firefox issue or Bitwarden setting somewhere.

Please inform if someone has solution or workaround.

Thank you.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 05:14:15 GMT

Please add "Firefox View" icon to sidebar.

That way single button will take me to "History", "Tabs", "Tabs from other devices" etc.

Then I can remove those History, Tabs etc. icons from sidebar and keep only "Firefox View" icon in sidebar.

Also add "Bookmarks" option in "Firefox View". So then I can remove "Bookmark" icon from side bar too and keep single, "Firefox View" icon in sidebar which will show me rest of options (Tabs, Bookmarks, History etc) when I click it.

Thank you.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 05:21:24 GMT

Pin tab option is already there when you right click on tab. So open a website in a new tab and pin the tab. Indirectly it will pin the website.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 05:28:05 GMT

You can use, little bit of "Free space" to the right of address bar and will be able to drag the window. (I can do it on Linux KDE, not sure if same works in windows)

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 05:29:59 GMT

He wants "vertical tabs" icons to appear on Left and rest the icons (History, bookmarks etc) to "right".

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 05:32:17 GMT

Yes, I would also like it to float instead of shrinking the tab and changes the page layout.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Aliday — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:13:26 GMT

Hello, Amish.

@amish wrote:
Please add "Firefox View" icon to sidebar.

I have latest mac firefox 136.0.2 (aarch64) on mac. There is only sidebar button and no "Firefox View."

I've check https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-set-tab-pickup-firefox-view article, but can't find it. I though "Show sidebar" option will enable it but no.

Can you suggest how to activate it?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

amish — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:18:48 GMT

Right click anywhere on Toolbar.

Goto Customize toolbar...

Drag and drop the "Firefox view" button wherever you want.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

mshn-mshn — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:18:09 GMT

Absolutely love it! Thank you folks!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Aliday — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 22:28:53 GMT

There is no bookmarks in "firefox view". Search field here also ignores bookmarks. And this panel isn't customizable. I don't understand why it exists without bookmarks...

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Windows_Vista — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 06:27:39 GMT

*Clap* *Clap* Well Done Mozilla finally takes a step forward though I will say though that other though that this sidebar feature could use some improvements and smoothening of the feature and how the sidebar behaves just look at Zen Browser.

We still don't have a Split View Feature in Firefox, also since those AI Features may be Privacy Invasive could you please give us an option to disable it in the Settings at the very least. Also my last complaint here is that the sidebar doesn't get themed when you apply a Special Theme to Firefox.

Vivaldi/Opera GX/Floorp/Zen Browser still has the best sidebar ever because Mozilla refuses to implement good features from those browsers into Firefox.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Astral — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 07:17:39 GMT

I'm quite sure of your point of view. By contrast, I really like the Zen sidebar!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Astral — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 07:21:44 GMT

Yes, I think it would be more efficient for Mozilla to copy the zen sidebar instead of waiting to hear from more people, because people who have used it have been so positive about it

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Windows_Vista — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 07:47:05 GMT

Yeah also this is what I don't like about Mozilla they don't like adding interesting or big features that could improve Firefox.

They always like shooting themselves in the foot. But I do agree that they should take from the Zen codebase and merge that stuff into Firefox.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Holar — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 05:49:16 GMT

Tab grouping / nesting with arbitrary depth (as in TST, Sideberry, etc) would be a great next step.

A small additional request would be to slightly decrease the opacity of unloaded tabs.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

matt-buckley — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 10:38:26 GMT

The option the above commenter described should do this, without needing to resort to userChrome.css? At least the behaviour you describe is what I see.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

matt-buckley — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 10:46:19 GMT

Edit: I should've read the initial post more closely, it seems this is already planned for Firefox 137! Great to hear 😁

Really love this implementation, thanks team! Great to have more screen real estate at the top. One feature that I'd really like to see is the ability to alternate between hiding the sidebar entirely and just having the tab icons show up. At present, using the Ctrl+Alt+Z shortcut on Windows (which doesn't seem to be documented by the way) either:

Alternates between tab icons and tab names + icons, if the "hide tabs and sidebar" option is disabled.
Alternates between a hidden sidebar and tab names + icons, if the "hide tabs and sidebar" option is disabled.

Even if I enable the "hide tabs and sidebar" option whilst my tab width is set such that only the tab icons show, when I use the Ctrl+Alt+Z shortcut the full-width tabs still appear. This means I must choose between either being unable to use a full screen (content only) display, as the vertical sidebar doesn't hide itself when enabling full-screen mode as with horizontal tabs, or needing to take up quite a lot of horizontal screen space whenever I want to switch tabs when, for me, just the icons would be sufficient. Even having an extra shortcut to do this would be great!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

incans — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:56:35 GMT

I've been a Firefox user for many years. In the traditional horizontal tab bar something I use a lot is the ability to create a new tab in the current window (e.g. with cntrl-t) then drag+drop the tab outside the current window to create a new window, containing that tab.

After the option of vertical tabs came out (which I mostly really like) I'm pretty sure I saw the "drag out to open the tab in a new window" gesture work briefly with vertical tabs, but now it doesn't?

Now, with vertical tabs the only way i can reliably move the tab out into a separate window is to right-click on the tab and select "Move Tab->Move to New Window" which is much less convenient than a simple drag+drop.

Was this function deliberately removed, or just lost by accident. Either way, can we have the "drag tab out into a new window" capability back please.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Windows_Vista — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:44:27 GMT

@asafko @ssmagula Why doesn't the Firefox team just use code from the Zen Browser? All the work is already done; they just need to merge that code into Firefox and modify it as needed. Why start from scratch when it’s already available?

Also, when is Firefox going to get a split view feature?

Again, the Zen team has already done all this work. All you need to do is take the code and merge it into Firefox.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 16:24:17 GMT

Another suggestion I have is that it will be nice to have two sidebars, for example the right sidebar will include Vertical Tabs and the second sidebar to the left Bookmarks, History, Synced tabs, Addons, Downloads, etc. or vice versa, like Vivaldi Browser UI which has 2 customizable sidebars.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

D0m1n1c — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 17:03:25 GMT

Have them and love them since some versions in Nightly build. But...

Since two days in Nightly (139.0a1), the color bar for a tab that is in a container is now at right instead the left. Why you did this change ? I don't like it. Please, provide an option to choose the position of the colored border.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

newbobr4 — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 19:39:17 GMT

I would have loved it if this were some kind of decluttering, space saving feature, like putting my open tabs on the left side going vertically along the edge of the page adjusting for the number of tabs which are open, exactly what the top bar does now. Instead, you wasted all of this screen real estate with these horizontal tabs using up all my screen space. Sure, I'm sure I can probably close the side bar, but my top tab bar is visible all the time and only uses a half inch of vertical space across the top of my screen. I would want the same on the side bar, only 1/2 inch of horizontal space used, with type written out sideways(but vertically) across the tab bar. To put it another way, to be sure you understand, rotate the current tab bar 90 degrees.

Of course, this should be an option only, so those who want a more cluttered screen like yourself can have it your way ;<)

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Takemi — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 02:54:40 GMT

A key feature for me is missing from the new sidebar. In the "tabs from devices" section, you cannot open all the tabs from that device like you could in the old sidebar.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

milen_prg — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 07:35:38 GMT

Please, tell me:

1. Who will exchange the 15 pixels themed beautiful line from the top of the screen, showing informative title, with ugly 1/5 of the whole screen from left (or right)?!

2. Who will use this vertical wide bar, which not hides when not used, with awful light blue color, the text on it is white, so absolutely unreadable, ugly, etc.

???

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

dh7 — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 07:49:54 GMT

In collapsed mode the audio icon takes up too much of the space and you end up accidentally clicking on it rather than the tab itself

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

jean1 — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 09:49:43 GMT

CTRL+ALT+Z isn't doing anything over here. (Firefox on Windows)

Is there any way to troubleshoot or change mapped shortcuts?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

NO_CARRIER — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 14:07:49 GMT

I love that they've seen the light with vertical tabs (I've been using TreeStyleTab) but the feature seems broken for me. I get an empty sidebar with the built-in buttons (AI chat, History, etc.) but no tabs at all. The row containing the navigation buttons, address bar, extension icons, etc. get shoved up into the title bar and get cut off (because the nav bar is taller than the title bar). The menu is no longer usable and ironically I can't access any tabs except the current one unless I re-enable TreeStyleTab. I thought maybe it could be because I have too many tabs open, but I get the same result in a Private Window with only a single tab open. Completely disabling the TreeStyleTab extension doesn't help.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

WyldDandelyon — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 16:48:25 GMT

The sidebar is a great idea--lots of web pages have so much space to the sides of the content, it sounded perfect. But while the horizontal sidebar has that little down-arrow-thingy to let you list all tabs, the vertical one does not! I went back to the horizontal one when I realized I could only see three non-pinned tabs and had no way to get the list of the rest of them to appear. Please fix this!!!!!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

dimas_sc — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:36:01 GMT

I'd love to use the new feature, but I can't live without nesting tabs / tree structure

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Jiu — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:33:41 GMT

There is a mysterious empty space on toolbar which can't be removed when I enable it. Most I can do is to move it the right side of address bar. This space is not present when I revert back to Horizontal tab.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

popop14302 — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 06:09:10 GMT

I know it might just be growing pains, but it takes me like 5-10 seconds every time to remember that I close tabs at the sides now, not at the top. I'd very much appreciate it if the address bar has a "close tab" button at the right of it, there's such a large space between the address bar and the "Save to Pocket" button, that a Close Tab button to the right of the address bar is a perfect place.

Also agree with others that too easy to accidentally close a tab now.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

ady — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 07:21:43 GMT

I like the new sidebar but there is one option it's missing for me: please enable the rearangement of the tabs from top to bottom or bottom to top. Now the newest tab is always at the bottom and it feels very unintuitive. IMO the newest tab should always be on the top and the older ones at the bottom. Would be nice if there was an option to change this!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

imcraymond — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:29:58 GMT

Version 138.0b2.

Please add "scroll to active tab". Lack of scrolling makes closing the current tab rather difficult.

EDIT: Turns out it scrolls to new tab, but if you expand/collapse the tabs it goes back to the top...

Drag and drop automatically created a new group. Could this be optional or a "do you want to" popup?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

xx2 — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:23:35 GMT

Extremely embarrassing to see an AI feature. I fully disabled it from configs, and if you continue down this path, I will be looking for a new browser,

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

davidgl — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:57:12 GMT

Awesome, thanks for this. As a UX researcher & designer I would say it is necessary when displaying the bookmarks panel on the right AS WELL as the vertical tabs/sidebar that the bookmarks are on the left of the sidebar.
Conceptually , bookmarks are a more permanent/ universal resource than tabs which are (in theory) more temporal, so moving from left to right you have the permanent resource, the more temporary resource, and the active view.

Also, you open tabs from bookmarks, so you could think of it as : Permanent resource on left, apply to temporal resource on right-the tab is the heading for what you are looking at so it should be adjacent to the current view.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

fgriffith — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:55:17 GMT

Basically the ability to separate the "Sidebar" from the "Vertical Tabs"

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

GM_CRC — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 19:31:38 GMT

I love the sidebar, but I found a little bug. Set the new sidebar to the right, opened ChatGPT to ask a about a technical issue, ChatGPT responded and added a YouTube video inside the sidebar, I clicked in the "Playing Picture in Picture" button, then the little PiP window opens but no video on it and close button didn't respond, had to end Firefox from task manager in order to close the PiP Window that got stock on screen.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

codesmithx — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 04:39:20 GMT

I totally love this! Excellent idea. Hopefully you can add an option to put it on right vertical side of the screen. When launcher is on left side such as on Mac OS or Ubuntu, a confusion arises when hovering.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

sky04 — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:07:51 GMT

Using the new sidebar limits us to having a very, very small area of the app window that we can use to actually move the window around, which is extremely inconvenient, especially for those of us with multiple screens that move stuff around. Right now I can only grab on to the tiny area between the back and forward arrows and the refresh button, and that just isn't enough. This kills the feature for me completely.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

codesmithx — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 07:25:44 GMT

Your screen might be very small. It's perfect here.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Gnomasz — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 08:32:13 GMT

This is very nice! Thank you for the feature!

The one thing i don't like is that turning on vertical tabs changes how the sidebar is themed - using the names from Firefox Color, it changes from Toolbar Color to Background Color. This feels jarring and overwhelming with my theme, which uses the Windows accent color for the window decoration. I'd much rather the vertical tabs used the toolbar color palette.

On the plus side I want to add that I found it easy and intuitive to find the settings and customise the sidebar (but my "computer literacy" is rather high).

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

IsaDesOsiers — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 16:30:19 GMT

I want to turn off AI. I see several comments here from other Mozilla members asking how to do this. The way AI is being developed and foisted down everyone's throat is more than merely "problematic". It is scary and dangerous. The actual developers of AI have been warning that AI is dangerous. We have opened Pandora's Box at a time of such political instability, with the rise of various Totalitarian, Authoritarian, Oligarchic tendencies gaining power all over the world. AI will be a terrible weapon in the hands of these groups, no? I don't want it on my beautiful Firefox Browser. I should be able to choose.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

ReK_ — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 18:00:58 GMT

I'm really enjoying this new feature so far, however there are couple improvements that would significantly improve the experience:

Add a loading indicator/animation to the URL bar in addition to the one on the sidebar tab.
Add the ability to hide extensions, either individual or all, from the sidebar.
Add the ability to hide the "Customize sidebar" button.
Add a search box at the top (when expanded) that will live filter tabs based on title, and a keyboard shortcut to move focus to that box similar to Ctrl+L.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

lucifer25x — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 18:18:17 GMT

It'd be great if we had the option to choose if opening something like AI chatbot from the sidebar would change the width of the website or would be like a popup.

I saw something about tab groups in news about Firefox, I think, but couldn't create one in vertical tab mode (I haven't tried it in horizontal tab mode)

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

JLB5488 — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 18:49:55 GMT

How about the ability to pin certain tabs that are used regularly to the vertical sidebar and allow horizontal tabs for less used sites but actively working on them?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

_wojtek — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 20:01:54 GMT

OMG! I love vertical tabs. Previously tried to use TreeStyleTab but it took quite a lot of space in the end (so I used multiple windows as a "grouping" mechanism instead) but having collapsed sidebar with only icons is brilliant! I still use multiple windows but icons, most of the time, are more than enough to get to the desired website.

There is an issue with dragging-them out if the sidebar is on the right.

Would be nice to be able to add custom websites/panels to the bottom side of the window (maybe a good place for "pinned tabs"?

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

MrSpaghetti — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 04:20:34 GMT

Maybe I just can't find the setting, but I recently added the left sidebar to my browser, and I really like it! However, I think it would be perfect if my bookmarks weren't hidden in another context menu. I would prefer if they replaced the star icon with all of them visible.

If its not currently possible, I'm not sure why the dev team didn't consider this, because it currently adds one extra click; something that we don't have to do with bookmarks on the horizontal bar.

Would be nice to have both options !

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

LanLP — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 06:16:25 GMT

The side bar should properly hide itself when firefox enter fullscreen mode (F11)

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

Nyerguds — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 12:41:12 GMT

Why is there extra horizontal space before the url bar whenever I enable vertical tabs? I can't drag it away when customising, either; gives a 🚫 symbol. I can move it around, but I can't get rid of it. It gives no tooltip when I hover over it, so I can't even tell what it is. And "remove from toolbar" is also greyed out when I right click on it.

And it's only there when vertical tabs are enabled.

[Edit]

It appears to be there to ensure you have a place to grab to drag the window. So, understandable, I guess. I don't really need it though, since I got the bookmarks toolbar open below that, and the open space on that serves the same purpose. Anyway, I dragged it to the right side of my url bar now, and it's fairly unobtrusive there.

It could definitely do with some kind of feedback, though, like a hover-over tooltip in editing mode. In fact, the normal "flexible space" is also missing a tooltip in editing mode.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

turninto — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 12:35:01 GMT

Agreed. There's no world in which these bots are actually helpful. All they do is regurgitate and hallucinate.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

turninto — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 12:36:38 GMT

I'm giving it a try, and I definitely like it so far (it emphases vertical space, which is more valuable to me when I'm web-browsing), but I'm begging you to let me remove the seemingly compulsory "flexible space" filler from the toolbar. No matter how or where I try to drag-and-drop it away, it refuses to go anywhere but a different place on the toolbar. It's driving me nuts lol.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

turninto — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 13:00:31 GMT

I noticed your edit after I left my comment, so I wanted to thank you here for the clarification.

In this case, though, I just wish I had more control over how the flexible space scales -- and better communication, as you said. The massive gap in the toolbar it creates when the window is maximized (mine almost always is) is an eyesore to me, as it stands.

It does at least disappear when I turn on the title bar, I'm noticing now, but for the purposes that I'm trying out the vertical sidebar (more vertical screen space), the title bar just refills the screen real estate this sidebar freed up.

Hopefully we're given a little more customization/control in the future, although I do think what this new sidebar feature offers, over all, is really nice.

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

achoo42 — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 14:55:05 GMT

Came here to say the same: Love the new vert, wish to separate the sidebar and have my browser window flanked by the tabs and sidebar on opposite sides!

Re: Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

achoo42 — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 15:03:13 GMT

Well, I like the vertical tabs because the screen has more width than height, so it can be a better use of space. I will often have way too many tabs open when I'm researching something and it's so much easier to see them all and make a selection when they're vertical. I can see more tab titles at once, and use my scroll wheel to navigate the list. And I don't mind the browser window being a little narrower because, again, scrolling is so easy.