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!

[Sapokong]

I would love to see a feature that automatically groups tabs from the same site into tab groups. For instance, if I open two YouTube tabs, they would be automatically grouped together. Additionally, I would like to see a stacking feature, where these grouped tabs not only appear together but also stack on top of each other. When I hover over the stack, it would display a list of the tabs within it, allowing me to easily select which one to switch to. This would free up a ton of space in tabs.

I don't think any other browser has a feature like this and I think it would be pretty useful.

[eye]

I would also love to see these features! Long time ago I used Vivaldi Browser for a little while and ever since, I wish tab stacks were available in other browsers.

[Sapokong]

I just downloaded Vivaldi to see what you meant, and yeah, this is exactly what I was talking about. I had no idea that someone had already done something like this.

So if anyone was wondering, in vivaldi you can stack tabs like so
 The 3 on the end being the amount of stabs in stack.

When you hover over that stack, you'll get a drop down menu to select tabs from with in that stack to jump to.
 

[OG]

If you go to the settings it can even do more. In your screenshot it shows the compact way to represent tab grouping/stacking

This is how all modes looks, I prefer two-level and Accordion, but I like the Accordion style in Firefox which is exactly like in Chrome.

Vivaldi also have Workspaces, which act like the old Tab grouping way in Firefox, which I badly need along Tab-grouping/stacking and profiles.

What I don't like about workspaces in Vivaldi that the work space button/name is right there on the tab bar, I wish to just have the icon, and when I click on it, I would see a list of work spaces.

I also wish to be able to save tabgroups/workspaces, Bookmakring is not a good alternative because you lose the tabs' history.

[Kvin]

Great, thank you, we've been waiting for this for a long time, it's a really convenient and necessary feature.

Now, the most missing feature is the ability to move collapsed group labels.

The ability to group tabs by simply moving the tab to the label of the collapsed groups.

And like in edge, when you hover over a group label, the preview should show tabs without expanding the group label, and show the number of tabs.

Also, an additional feature to automatically group tabs without user intervention, for example, by domain, similar to chrome extensions.

Grouping of tabs for the mobile version of Firefox.

The ability to choose a custom color for group labels.

Is any of this already in development or in the pipeline?

[aminought]

Tab groups and vertical tabs are useless for me without workspaces.

[OB]

   I don't like that when I on one of the grouped tab sand collaps the group, then 1) browser switches my current tab and 2) I can't navigate inside the closed tab using Ctrl+Tab               

[qwryu]

I hope that:

• Even when there is an extremely large number of (unloaded) tabs, all basic tab operations remain smooth and lag-free.
• A flexible and practical API is provided for extensions so that, as long as the extension implementation is solid, its operational performance can match that of native tab operations.

[SuperMatt]

1. I'd love the ability to move the groups around. Having them stuck in place is extremely frustrating
2. The ability to hide a group would be extremely useful. That way I could group some tabs, hide them, and then come back to them at a later date when I'm ready to continue that project. I know that "save and close groups" does this, but that's a very dangerous sounding action, with no indication before using it how to recover from save.

[fastcat]

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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)

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This bit of UI isn't available if the new vertical tabs mode is enabled, which makes it annoying to get the tabs back.

[Baffle7529]

Are workspaces coming to Firefox as well?

[myspace]

Yes finally! I'm liking it so far. But I do have a request: to be able to share groups.  

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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).