topic Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover in Discussions

Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

jwm-mbartek — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:44:28 GMT

With the new UI, the only ways to close tabs are:
1) Select the tab and thereby reload the page
2) Right click on the tab and select close from context menu.

Previous behavior, if I remember right - You could mouse over the tab and the full tab with X would appear, allowing tab closing.

The current setup really slows down workflow and is counterintuitive.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

kelimuttu — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 05:49:31 GMT

When you say with the new AI, are you referring to the Smart Window feature?

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

dftf — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 09:53:13 GMT

I suspect they meant to type "UI" and are referring to the new rounded Nova look

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

kelimuttu — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:13:49 GMT

I was confused because I couldn't replicate the issue on my side. I checked Nightly and release but I can still see the x menu to close the tab when I move my mouse over the tab.

@dftf can you perhaps see if you can replicate it?

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

jwm-mbartek — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:47:06 GMT

I meant UI. May I blame autocorrect? No.

In any case I've attached a screenshot. Note that the cursor is over a tab without activating X menu. The activated tab is the last one visited. In order to get the close tab, the tab must be loaded. This is on a Mac Pro.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

dftf — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:08:08 GMT

Why don't you tag the original user, @jwm-mbartek ?

They're on a Mac; I'm on Windows, so this may not be an issue I can replicate.

From their screenshot, it looks like they have Firefox in full-screen mode and none of the tabs are showing the 'X' to close them. Maybe when you have a certain number open, and the tabs reduce in-size, the X gets removed from them?

Surely most of Mozilla in the US use Mac devices? Can't they test this internally?

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

jwm-mbartek — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:51:24 GMT

I opened a fresh window and that's exactly the behavior I see. X is visible if there are a small number of tabs. X disappears due to small tab size with a lot of tabs open. It would be good to have it reappear on mouseover.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

kelimuttu — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:49:42 GMT

Can you confirm which version are you using? I included a screenshot of mine from Nightly 160.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

jwm-mbartek — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 15:00:34 GMT

I'm using 157.0.1 (aarch64). I see that you only have a few tabs up, though, so you wouldn't see the issue.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

kelimuttu — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 15:40:21 GMT

I see what happen now. It looks like the tab close icon only appears on horizontal tabs when you have 9 tabs or less. If you open 10 or more, you won't see the x icon when hovering on top of it.

That said, it's not something we introduced with the new UI because I get the same behavior when testing this on 151. I also noticed that we don't have this issue on vertical tabs.

I'd suggest creating a new thread under the ideas section with this newly found information, so we can let others vote on it. You posted this thread under the Discussions section, which is more about having conversation about something rather than advocating for a product change.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

Agentvirtuel — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:31:46 GMT

Bonsoir

To complement,

I should be able to close a tab without selecting a tab
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/i-should-be-able-to-close-a-tab-without-selecting-a-tab/idi-p/46605

To complement, just to see.

Re: Make close tabs easier for rounded tabs - X on mouseover

Agentvirtuel — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 18:24:20 GMT

To complement, a related subject https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1612537

Just to see.