Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136

[asafko]

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. 

[phelpsm90]

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

[Kvin]

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.

[Jon]

@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:

Wallpaper in new tab 

Background image in Firefox Mobile 

[frshaad]

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.

[Kvin]

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!

[Unpackage]

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.

[nlcommercial]

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.

[Synchro]

Good news!

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

[zalizo]

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