Help shape the future of Tab Groups in Firefox!

[dsandoz]

Hello everyone,

My name is Devin Sandoz and I’m a product marketing manager at Mozilla. @ssmagula is the product manager. I'm posting on behalf of the Tab Groups team who are working to help you be more productive and happy when using Firefox. We want to thank you for all your helpful feedback in Mozilla Connect and invite you to help us improve Tab Groups before a wider release. 

What are Tab Groups?

Tab Groups will help you organize your tabs. Whether you keep your tab bar tidy with just a few tabs or you hoard thousands of tabs, Tab Groups will make it easier than ever to switch between and re-find tabs and tasks—all while maintaining the privacy of Firefox. Say you’re planning a vacation over spring break. A group will help you to keep all your flight searches, lodging options, local restaurants in one easy to re-find place.

Join the Firefox Tab Groups Preview

1. Download Firefox Beta — Tap the Download button, follow the instructions to install, and then launch Firefox Beta. If you already have Beta installed, update to the latest version
2. Use tab groups for all your browser tasks
3. Share your feedback, comments, questions, possible bugs, and ideas for the future in this thread. Your feedback will be valuable as we work through known issues and discover new issues.

Tab groups in action

Tab groups help you stay organized and focused

Creating groups

Once fully released, there will be a helpful call-out explaining how to create groups. To create a group drag a tab on top of another tab and pause until you see a highlighted drop area, then release it. Or right-click any tab and select Add tab to group. Next you can name it. For example, you might want to create a group called News. Add news sites by dragging them into any expanded group. When you’re done catching up on the news, select “Save and close group” so you can remove it from your tab bar and re-open the group the next day. All your groups—open and closed—are always available via the “list all tabs menu” (a downward-facing caret at the right of the tab bar)—even if you close a window or restart, no account needed. 

Known issues

Our team is working hard to make Firefox Tab Groups the best they can be, and we thank you for your help and patience as we discover and smooth out any rough edges.

Faster, better, easier

At Firefox Tab Groups are just part of a larger effort to improve browser productivity. Our designers and developers are creating new tools to improve productivity and efficiency including a sidebar with vertical tabs, better profiles. Our goal is to help you achieve more with less effort so that you can focus on your spring break vacation, and not on your tabs or the browser.

We can't wait for you to try Tab Groups so you can tell us what you think!

[vptwarrior]

Would love so that their is a setting to permanently turn it off even if I restart firefox as I am not fond of this feature.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Take a look at
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1506304
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/help-shape-the-future-of-tab-groups-in-firefox/m-p/93640/...

[algharna]

Hello, is there anyway to sync groups tabs across devices? I want to access the same groups on my laptop that I have grouped on my desktop. Currently when you look at tabs from other devices, the list can be huge and looks very cluttered, then you have to organize them by groups on the separate device as well. Being able to sync across devices would help much with my workflow.
Thank you!

[Justyn]

Tab groups synced with and supported on the mobile/Android app

Currently having all my tabs organised into groups on desktop but then seeing them all in disorganised chaos when synced to my phone renders the desktop-mobile tab syncing almost useless to me.

[Honeywell]

Please bring this to mobile! Tab groups is literally the only reason I'm still on Chrome on my Android. 

[jburridge]

• Mobile<->Desktop sync is a critical requirement
• A tab group 'stash' would be nice - sort of like temporary bookmarking where you can shove things you aren't actively working on right now, but don't want to more permanently bookmark.
• Properly embedding the hierarchy of window (which is one form of tab grouping) and then tab groups under that, and providing an overall view of that tree of window->group->tab with some decent drag and drop, move all, etc. features for moving tabs/groups between groups/windows. Then in the mobile synced counterpart the desktop windows can appear as tab groups with nested tab groups.
• Filtering inside tab groups - for example, filtering to all tabs from or not from a specified domain, tabs where the title does or doesn't match some regex. An example use case is a project tab group where you have a combination of search engine pages and actual resources, and you want to be able to filter to one or the other type of tab.
• Tab group scoped settings for mute/unmute, custom css, etc.
• 'Find text in all tabs within tab group'

[dbasch]

Please add tab groups to mobile Firefox. It is the only missing feature keeping me from using Firefox.

[Harnesh]

Oh finally, this is something we were waiting for a while!

Please add this also on mobile app too, personally this is where I would like to see this first!

[Merci-chao]

Hello @dsandoz,

I'm not sure why Firefox should mimic the tab group feature of other Chromium browsers, like Chrome, Edge, Brave and Vivaldi.

Those browsers provide the feature and their users need it so bad because they have the same problem: tabs are squeezed to unrecognizable when there are too many. Therefore, users need some way to organize the tabs to prevent this. Firefox doesn't have this problem because it provides a distinct UI: the tabs bar can scroll.

As a tab management feature, an identical implementation is not that suitable for Firefox because of the same issue: the UI is different. Users have to scroll to find the groups on Firefox, but not on other browsers, the groups are always visible and accessible. I think users will soon find out they struggle in finding the groups and want the group labels to stay at the edge while scrolling, something like "pinned" or "sticky".

I think the Firefox designing and development teams should think out of the box, and create a distinctive tab management feature, but not always mimic and follow behind the opponents.

Personally, I appreciate the good old Panorama very much. It is the exact idea of "workspace" and was implemented years before, but unfortunately dropped. Yes, there are some tab group extensions, but they are not that smooth and fancy, and require users to install manually.

[Nubu]

I literally just had to go to Reddit to learn how to turn this off. The current roll out is EXTREMELY annoying, randomly triggering groups the moment you click on any tab and break your sorting of tabs is frustrating. PLEASE make sure this can be turned off when you roll it out fully. Firefox is virtually unuseable when it takes 3 seconds every time you swap a tab to ungroup things. I have 20 tabs open for a reason, I want to be able to swap between them, not fight with them constantly.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/help-shape-the-future-of-tab-groups-in-firefox/m-p/93874/...
Is it possible to opt back into a study after removing it? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1507756

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1k8j8t2/how_to_disable_tab_grouping

Opt out of, all studies, this is not the correct method.
In this case, it's hard to know who does what?.

About Studies https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield
Allow Firefox to install and run studies, and (to see if), remove the study concerned.

[AbbacchioJones]

It would be great if there were an option to keep tab groups in the tab bar between sessions (without having to enable restoring all tabs) rather than storing recent tab groups in a expandable menu. Sometimes (especially with work) I need to break away from browsing a particular topic but want the visual reminder that the group exists and the ability to quickly jump back in by just expanding the group. I'm sure I'm not the only one who falls under the "if I don't see it, it doesn't exist" category. This is something that Edge does by default which is part of the reason I still use it for work.

[N0ah]

Loving the Tabgroups with Vertcial Tabs so far (coming form Chrome/ Safari), but i think the following 4 things are still missing/ need some work:

- Behavior of creating new Tabs:
If you want to create a new Tab doenst matter if you are in a Tab that is Grouped or not the Create Tab Button is under the newest tab. If you press Create Tab the Tab is generated not grouped. You could use the cmd key, to group the tab in. I think it woud be benefical to have a button under your current active Tab wich creates the Tab in the active Group (Under the active Tab). The Button New Tab could still co exist and behave like it currently does.

- Placement of New created tabs and (newly) opend Groups:
Lets say i have a active group and i ceate a New Tab this tab is placed underneath the Grouped Tabs. If know a new group is opend this is Placed underneath the ungrouped Tabs. Newly (ungrouped) Tabs will now be placed underneath the Second open Group. Giving a (from top to Bottom) Group1, UngroupedTab1, Group2, UngroupedTab2...
I think Tab Group should be Together and ungroup Tabs after (like Folders are mostly Displayed on Top, followwed by Documents in Windows). Specailly the Fact that the ungrouped Tabs are beteween Groups annyos me.

- Moving Groups:
Refers a bit to the previous point. On my Mac and with Vertical Tabs im Not able to move the Groupe as such. The oldest opend Tab Group is on Top and i cant move it lets say underneath another one. Touching on the Previous Point lets say i have a Group1, 10 ungrouped Tabs and (re)open a Group: Now i can just move the new Group on top underneath the Group1, i woud have to Shift select all Tabs (or do it 1 one by 1) and move them underneath the Groups. If i want to have the Group2 on top of Group1 i woud need to close and reopen the Group.

- Syncing Tab Groups:
Specailly thinking cross devices here: The tabs in Groups i created on my PC i can open via the Sync normaly on my Phone, but the Groups are lost, its just a long list of all opend Tabs. Being able to open closed Tabs cant be done (or i didnt find it) on my Mobile Phone.

[Roey]

I would like to see the following for tab groups (I align my tabs vertically):

- ability to set a favicon for a tab group, to appear right before its name. I find myself spending too much time looking for a specific tab group, so this feature would help quite a bit for finding groups at a glance.

- ability to drag to move groups around

- a feature to force the tab groups appear sorted by name

- ability to save and load tab groups (unfividually, by selection, or all at once) to/from JSON

[Badman]

Must have this available on Mobile.
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/mobile-tab-grouping/idi-p/86
Without the support of syncing these between desktop and mobile I don't really see a use for this (personally). This is the only feature I (and many others) are waiting on before we can switch to using Firefox, without this we are stuck on Chrome.

[chaosdruid]

Thanks. The first issue is apparent after one minute of using them.

I have 10 tabs, A to J. I group A & F in a group call "New".

I move F to the right of B. B is now in the "New" group. Why?

Are groupings just 'Whatever is on the right of this tab is now in group "New"'?

[ssmagula]

Hello, Firefox friends! Tab Groups—a new way to organize and take control of your tabs—is now available to almost all users worldwide. Create a group by dragging one tab onto another, pausing briefly, then dropping it. Starting today with the release of Firefox 138, you can also reposition tab groups on the tab bar by dragging them.

It feels good to announce the wider release of Tab Groups here on Mozilla Connect, where Tab Groups began. At our kickoff meeting, @Jon shared a presentation that clearly reflected your goals, needs, and ideas. Throughout the design and development process, your feedback on early versions in Firefox Nightly, our leading edge browser for testing and development, helped guide our design and implementation.

To learn more about how the Firefox Community shaped Tab Groups, please see  "You asked, we built it: Firefox tab groups are here " a blog post about Mozilla Connect's role in Tab Groups.


Create your first group : drag a tab onto another related tab, pause, then drop the tab to create a group

Tab Groups are just the first step in what we hope are several that will put Firefox users in control of organizing tabs and other information in the browser. We're already hard at work prototyping and testing a new kind of tool that aims to make organizing tabs less tedious and more joyful. Stay tuned for more information soon.

[wasker]

I'd like to be able to pin tab groups, so I could see them visible in the tab bar but not expanded.

I'm also confused with groups' persistence. The down arrow in the tab bar shows "Recent tab groups" after I had the browser window with groups closed - are they safe from being recycled? There seem to be no menu to see the list of tab groups otherwise.

[niallobr]

Glad this was added to Firefox. Really need it on iOS with sync support. Far as I can tell, nobody has a cross platform tab group sync (Safari is very close, but no Windows support).

[likelazarus]

Not sure if it's just me experiencing this bug, but when I create a new group in the List all tabs dropdown, it creates two copies of those groups, one of them a complete phantom that only shows up in that dropdown and I have to restart FF entirely to see the phantom group of tabs and delete them.

Other than that, I love that this feature has arrived at last!

[egghead]

I really want to use tab groups on Android! Because it's harder to see my tabs, it's harder to address things I've been researching and avoid redundant tabs. I really need to be able to organize what I'm doing better and tab groups would help a lot! 

[mercurie80]

While I am happy for those who like tab groups, I have no use for them myself. I would appreciate it if there was a way to disable them in Settings rather than having to go into about:config.

[Chronovore]

This is terrible and I hate it. I try to turn it off in about:config but then it turns itself back on whenever I start a new session. This is very bad.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Take a look at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/help-shape-the-future-of-tab-groups-in-firefox/m-p/94527/...

About Studies https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield

---

Type about:studies into your address bar to see a list of your studies.
Click the Remove button next to the study you want to opt out of.

---

By way of illustration https://www.youtube.com/embed/4wR6q5vodGU

[Marguerite]

HI, I just wanted to tell you how much I do appreciate the huge TabGroups improvement you just added to Firefox. I had been hoping for such a tool for years ! This helps me tremendously for my latin translations, part of my medieval studies. Bravo, félicitations from a French enthusiastic Firefox user for more than 15 - even 20 ? - years now. 

[CUsoon]

So far I like the tabs. A few thoughts.

1. They don't appear to be stable yet, some of them jump around between groups.

2. I would like to see the ability to use custom colors for unlimited options.

3. The biggest option I would like to see is the ability to have subgroups. Example, I want to group all tabs related to landscape ideas I am looking to do at my house, but I want to group tabs that relate to different ideas. LANDSCAPE (group) - FLOWERS (subgroup) - PLANTS (subgroup) - TREES (subgroup).

[jack525]

A function that automatically aggregates tabs from the same website into tab groups is something I would really like to see. For example, two YouTube tabs would be automatically grouped together if I opened them. Furthermore, I would like to see a feature that allows these grouped tabs to stack on top of one another in addition to appearing together. A list of the tabs within the stack would appear as I hovered over it, making it simple for me to choose which one to go to. There would be so much more room in tabs as a result. Samsara Island 

[whoami730]

There should be a default way to open a new tab within the group itself. Moreover, this should be tied with a keyboard shortcut (preferably ctrl+T). Right now, any new tab will always open outside the group, and I have to resort instead to duplicating the current tab.

[Anonymous]

I updated Firefox today to 138.0, it SPECIFICALLY opened a page to inform me that now I have access to using tab groups, and a help page telling me how to do it, and there is no tab group functionality in my browser. Granted, there is a warning in the help page saying that some users will not see this feature. But why tell us that we have this great new feature if you don't give it to us?

[MartinK]

As I wrote before, I really like the tab groups, but they're still buggy: As you can see in the screenshot, my two tab groups ("Home Recording" and "England") are listed twice. Last night, they were listed separately—as they should be. I don't know why this is happening (of course), but as long as this bug persists, grouping tabs is pretty pointless.

[MartinK]

Unfortunately, the problem still exists in the current version of Firefox 139.0. Both the groups and the individual tabs are listed twice.

[W0lf]

I previously made this post and before that this post but I realize it's in the wrong section now that tab groups are being worked on, so I will now post it again here: 

Now that tab groups are actively being worked on I'd like to share some of the ideas again because I believe they will make the tab groups experience a lot better.

-Saving Tab groups-
I would like to see a way to permanently store tab groups outside of having a group in saved in list all tabs. (which gets removed from the saved list when you open the tab group again)
I think that the best way to store a tab group would be making a bookmarks folder with all the tabs inside of it.
There could be a special folder inside the bookmarks sidebar where saved tab groups would go as folders with web pages inside of them.
This also needs the feature where you can create a tab group from a bookmarks folder, as I think this feature would also be very useful where you can open bookmark folders as a tabgroup for more productivity. The open all bookmarks function could open all of the bookmarks in the folder inside a tab group for example.

-History-
When you look at your browsing history currently there is no way to see if a tab was part of a tab group and there is no way to re-open closed tab groups in their entirety.
I would like to see this be possible. Where in the history you can re-open entire closed tab groups and see if a tab was part of a tab group by a small color on the side for example.
A special history mode that focuses on tab groups would also be an interesting option. Where you see closed tabs ranked by group.

[ModChan]

Hello...

I am fine with the whole tab group feature existing...  But how do I turn it off?

I have no need for this feature and it is annoyingly preventing me from managing my tabs easily as every time I move a tab between another tab it tries to group it with one of them. I have lived with it for a time and even looked at and tried it experimentally but I don't have need for the utility and I would think a right click select option where I am able to switch into a grouping mode would be better. That way when I have tabs I do not want grouped I don't risk auto entering grouping and having to cancel it each time it mistakenly tries to group them.

That suggestion is my olive branch and while you or others might find it useful I do not. It just appeared and now it makes my user experience more annoying since I cannot simply turn it off.

If there is no current way to disable it as I have not found it yet I am making myself known that an obvious settings option to turn this feature off would be appreciated or at least to not make it automatic on drag and drop all the time. In fact any new feature you try out should have an option to disable it or make it a selection option for use at release for those who do not wish to deal with it being always on and active.

Thank you for your consideration.

[chaosdruid]

Type this into the location bar: about:config and click "Accept the Risk and continue"

Type browser.tabs.groups into the search box and you should be able to change enabled from on to off in the ones you want disabled by using the  ⇌

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

To complement, these discussions, this question https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1509077.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

You can post an idea https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-to-submit-a-great-idea-in-five-easy-steps/td-p/24 to add an option into the user interface.

[Ramouz]

You're lucky that you can even get to use it! I'm still waiting since the previous version to use this and it hasn't appeared. Even in the latest one! I restarted multiple times and nothing.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Take a look at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1509339

1 - Go to Configuration Editor for Firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox
2 - Enter a search term browser.tabs.groups.enabled, and ckeck if, true.

[Ramouz]

Thanks. I understand I can do it manually but why though? They said they launched it in this version so it should be working on mine. I prefer keeping things default. I'm really wondering if it's still "rolling out".

[Hrrgh]

Just started using tab groups yesterday and the AI features of it and here are my hopes and dreams with regards to its UI and usability thus far:

- In horizontal tab mode, tab groups really need to not be able to yeet their group name off screen when opened. The furthest open tab group to the left needs to always be visible on the far left otherwise everyone'll have to start scrolling left and right if the group is tab heavy enough:

• Open tabs that aren't part of the group but are to the group's right will disappear off to the right.
• The title of the tab group will disappear off to the left.
• Both things can happen at the same time.

- In private browsing, it seems the auto-generated tab names and recommendations for intelligently consolidating tabs into a group do not exist. I'm not sure how either would conflict with the privacy goals of private browsing and frankly, missing those makes the whole experience a little clunkier. If Firefox is training itself under normal operation, maybe have it act like it's a fresh install in private browsing or something?

- More colours for the groups, please. Perhaps lift from those Colourways Mozilla had going some time back to make two or three variants of the same colour visually different (dark text/dark border, light text/light border, etc) or have an auto-colour option that lifts from the colour that clips into the address bar from the tab used to create the group.

Been enjoying them so far and looking forward to how they turn out.