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!

[ssmagula]

Hello@myspace Thank you for your comment and your request for a way to share tab groups with other people.

Can you tell me a bit more about what being able to share tab groups would mean to you?

• What is a common scenario that describes when, with whom, and why you'd like to be able to share a tab group?
• How many people would you anticipate sharing with most often: just one person, a group, or anyone with the link?
• Once you have shared a tab group, what would you expect?
• Would some people have the right to customize the shared group?
• Would you desire or expect to be able to collaborate on the tabs in the group? What types of collaboration would be most valuable?

[myspace]

Thanks for the response @ssmagula.

• I'm thinking it would be most useful when planning a trip with my partner, or if we're shopping for something and I can easily send over a group of tabs. Being able to add a note would be a nice touch too. And I imagine it would be great for students working together on projects. 
• Friends and family. 
• I would expect the recipient to then be able to add to the group and customize it on their own, which wouldn't affect how the group appears in my browser unless it is shared back. 
• Some tabs, particularly docs and such, could be collaborated on. But again, if they chose to close out any of the tabs or remove them from their browser, it would be independent of my original group. 

[myspace]

Just had another idea. Probably more useful to me than the previous one I shared. With profiles being worked on it would be beneficial to easily send tab groups to another profile. 

[OG]

That's a wonderful Idea: Copy/cut tab groups/tab stacks to a new window or profile, and the same for workspaces (or how tab group used to be in Firefox)

I also like to add the option to "Bookmark" Tabgroup/tabstack and work spaces. Basically if you have to halt the project or research for sometime then you will "bookmark"  preserving tab history AKA session history. IT MATTERS. I use bookmarks and MANY times I needed to go back, but the history was lost.

[xaddict]

Your first point (new window) can be done by

1. Dragging out the tab group
2. Right-clicking the group and choosing "Move group to new window"

[ari007]

Absolutely mate! I'd also like to access tab groups across my devices. Currently only tabs are synced, need the tab groups to be synced.

[toraxmalu]

and please - that not only on Desktop-Firefox: on mobile too… - the current incarnation (shown on 139.0.4) is good - but without sync it is not helpfull… – well not in the way to "organize" quickly temp-groups. for more permament solution the folders in bookmarks are helpfull enough

[Steeltent]

Please add two things to make this perfect:

1. The option to keep one tab visible when the group is minimized.

2. The option to collapse and expand the group by double-clicking the active tab of the group.

Pretty please with sugar on top. Even if just as a config flag. Please. Nobody has to know. It will be our little secret.

Okay, sorry for being weird. I really, really want these two features. Please make it happen.

[ssmagula]

Hello @Steeltent , Thanks for your ideas. Please keep them coming.

So that I am sure I understand #1: when you collapse a group with the active tab in it, you'd like to collapse the group and save space, except the tab that is active and inside the group would remain visible? And perhaps it would be visibly associated with the collapsed group?

[Steeltent]

That's right. I imagine it would look like a group with just one tab in it.

This would be perfect for a group of videos for example. You can just watch one video anyway (well, except when you use PiP) so I just need to see one tab of that group at a time.

Thanks for taking the time and interacting here!

[ssmagula]

Hi, I think I see your scenario of use more clearly now: when you have a tab that receives the majority of your attention for a good amount of time ("You can just watch one video anyway") it's useful to expose this tab without exposing all the others in the group. It's a bit like temporarily ungrouping the tab.

Please keep the ideas coming.

[Steeltent]

Yeah, you may want to have a group of videos, watching one of them and still switch to other tabs or groups. You'd have to choose between keeping the video group expanded, which negates the space saving aspect of the feature or you'd have to expand and collapse the group all the time which is impractical imo. 

While I have you: I encourage you guys to please take a few minutes and check out the tab stacking feature of Opera 12.18. Ten years old now and their Tab Stacking still feels absolutely fantastic and fresh. Not the worst source for inspiration imo. 

[chairmanbrando]

I've just switched to using vertical tabs with tab groups in v136 with the requisite config options enabled. Seems like a pretty good setup so far. One thing I want already, though, is a button to add a new tab to a group. I know you can do it with a right-click, but it'd be cool to have it doable with one action. Alternatively or in addition, being able to Cmd-T a new tab in the current group would be nice. Maybe it could be a config option or a slightly different T-based key combo. If this functionality happens to already exist, let me know!

[s_hentzschel]

Thank you for working on tab groups! I don't have that many requirements for such a feature. Only one thing is essential for me: I use a lot of tabs and my way of working involves moving tabs around a lot. And that's exactly what I want to do with tab groups as well. I need certain structures to work with and at the same time I need the flexibility to be able to adapt these structures at any time. Unfortunately, moving groups is not (yet?) possible. As soon as this is possible, I will definitely use tab groups. Unfortunately, without this option, I can't use it yet.

[Paul-E]

What will the migration story be for users of existing tab group extensions? Eg I use Panorma Tab Groups.

[AwePineapp]

That sounds complex and way beyond what Firefox should spend their time adding support for. 

[Lemon1284]

I'm mostly focusing on the vertical tabs feature + tab groups. It's a bit weird trying to create tab group with the mouse. I'm wondering if yall could change it to be more like Sidebery's implementation. I have vids to show the weird behavior vs how it's done in Sidebery.

[ssmagula]

Hello @Lemon1284 Thanks for taking the time to create this helpful video. I really appreciate it.

Today, when you drag a tab over another tab with the intent of creating a group, you must pause momentarily in order to trigger the highlighted drop area.

Stefan

[2mustange]

Will we be getting an extension API once MVP is done?

[Synchro]

Can I collapse all my groups? Or do I have to have at least one group expanded (or a tab outside of the groups)?

Sometimes clicking a coulor groups's square collapses a group and sometimes opens a new empty tab inside this group - do I miss a logic of this action? Maybe should be different actions to open new tab inside the group and outside of any groups?

[eschatos]

Curious timing, hmmm

[Tuki_Tuki]

As i already suggested in original thread we need some form of autogrouping. Maybe semi-auto by clicking on specific button. But grouping by domain (like in Vivaldi f.e.) or even better by set set of rules is essential in my opinion. For work related issues possibility to open new tab from bug tracker f.e. in specified group tab for specific work environment and not in same group tab from where it was opened would be great. If we could set rules (akin filter rules for mail in Thunderbird) for where to move new tab upon opening it - even better.

[Lovelymafia]

> some form of autogrouping. Maybe semi-auto by clicking on specific button. 

There seem to be already a few addons that allow grouping ... 

• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-groups/ 
• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/group-same-site-tabs/
• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/group-same-container-tabs/ 

but nothing i could find that allows to specify "custom rules" for automatic tab grouping. 

[Nico4]

I would like the tab groups are always visible and restored in the tab bar if I close the browser. Having to restore them every time I open the browser is anoying. I work with many groups and need to have them organized in the tab bar always so I can have fast access.

[ssmagula]

Hello @Nico4 , I hear you. If you'd like the groups and tabs to be restored to your tab bar each time you restart the browser, please navigate to about:preferences and in the Startup section at the top of the page you'll see an option to enable "Open previous windows and tabs."

[GoLLuM13]

Tha would be great if we had something comparable to the Chromium-Browser extension "Tab Groups Extension" where we can setup rules for auto tabs, example I can set up a group-tab called "Shopping" with rules like hostname includes "amazon" - "Newegg" or "ebay" and whenever I open a page on these websites it automatically go to the group "Shopping" or create it if it isn't there yet, and I can do the same with many others groups (e-mail, social networks, news...), making it easier to manage tabs (and groups) and the experience is customized to everyone's liking

[Steeltent]

It looks like we can't move the groups around at the moment. 

That seems like a big oversight that should be addressed before the official release.

[ssmagula]

@Steeltent If you download Firefox Nightly, you can test out repositioning tab groups on the tab bar. As more information becomes available, we'll announce it.

[WhiffCityUSA]

A keyboard shortcut to add a new tab to the right (and in the current group) would be great. I see I can right click a tab and add a new tab to the right, but I don't think there's any way to do that from the keyboard.

I used to use the following shortcuts and loved it

Cmd+T: open a new tab to the right. The new tab remains in the current tab group if there is one
Cmd+Y: open a new tab at the end of my tab list. The new tab is not in a group

I think adding a "New tab to right" to the file menu would be very helpful and allow us to bind shortcuts to it.

[Eris]

First of all, this is awesome. Thank you!

In no particular order, the following additions/changes awesome for my workflow.

1. Drag a tab (or several) into a closed group.
2. Add tabs to the current group either after the current tab or at the end of the group using keybinds.
3. Move groups by dragging. Maybe including selecting multiple groups at the same time. Dragging into a new window.
4. Clarify "Save an close groups". To me it's not clear what it does (i.e where it saves to and how to restore it).
5. Fine tune creating a group by dragging one tab on to another. (Feels a bit finicky atm.)
6. Collapse all groups at once.
7. Share groups to other devices
8. Autogrouping by website or other attribute.
9. Search for tabs within a group.
10. Hovering on other group shows maybe the number of tabs it contains or a preview of the tabs.
11. Maybe subjective, but I think closing the last non-grouped tab shouldn't open a closed group.
12. Reopening a previously closed tab (Ctrl+shift+t) should probably add back to the original group.

[brightmatter]

A
Ba
Bb
Bc
C
Da
Db
if I close (middle click) Bc my subjective expectation is the active tab stays in the B subtree and thus opens Bb, but it currently leave the group and activates C

[LizardInBigCoat]

Suggestion/request, I like the idea of having the option to have the tab groups pinned in the new vertical sidebar even if vertical tabs are disabled.

In such cases, on selecting a group from the vertical sidebar, the group of tabs appear in the horizontal tab bar. Ungrouped tabs remain in the horizontal tab bar like normal.

I'd also like more clarification on how tab groups interact with the 'Clear Browsing & Download History On Close' setting. I know that setting prevents pinned tabs from persisting between sessions, and I would like to know whether that oversight applies to tab groups data as well, or if there will be an option to clear browsing history, but not clear tabs from tab groups between sessions. (Or if tab groups are retained using a different method).

[BenL]

What I really want is for Firefox to have a Workspaces feature exactly like Zen Browser, but in Firefox. It is literally the only feature keeping Firefox from being my daily driver.

[jalalabdulaziz]

Hi, I just logged in to say thank you for the feature! I took some time to play with it and customized the CSS to my liking. One feature I wish we had is the ability to open a bookmark folder as a tab group—I believe Chromium based browsers have this feature.

[Lovelymafia]

> the ability to open a bookmark folder as a tab group 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-bookmarks-in-tabgroup/ 

[OG]

And automatically name the tab group as the bookmark folder.

[Lovelymafia]

That works now too

[Baffle7529]

I would suggest that Firefox implements a similar functionality found in Microsoft Edge.  When a Tab Group is closed, if the pointer hovers on the Tab Group, a display of the tabs in the Tab Group is visible, making it easy to change to those tabs without having to expand the tab group.

[__ds]

Vivaldi does that too. It's useful.

[Rhysk]

so just had my computer reset, lost all my tab groups and all the tabs in the groups with no way to restore them.