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?

[Astral]

I need it!hha

[MasterMan]

Or to be able to arbitrarily/manually select which addons are shown on the sidebar (either separate from the top bar, or synced with it)

[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

[Skywind]

Glad to see so much progress has been made. Thumbs up for you all!

But the ability to remove the add-on icons to the left bottom corner of the sidebar is a must. I hope this could be realized soon!

[Lohikaarme_91]

Ability to remove customize sidebar button. The same option is under right click.

[Astral]

It would be useful if in a future version we could pin websites to the sidebar. I'm currently using the Side View extension instead, but it doesn't allow you to switch between desktop and Android UA, and it doesn't allow you to easily open popular websites.

[myspace]

Looks good thanks. I really like being able to easily rearrange the pinned tabs. The only thing I'm missing from Tree Style Tabs is the ability to nest tabs. 

[eknobl]

The the new sidebar with vertical tabs looks great. It would be cool to be able to choose which extensions show in the sidebar. Also, to be able to close tabs with a double click.

[broman_pl]

Next step is bookmarks toolbar on a side 🙂

[maestroj]

I would love to see a tree tab structure, something like sidebery!

[azumukupoe]

So many times, I try to switch to a tab, only to accidentally click the close button. The button is too big.

[aronmandos]

Please give the option to remove the close button again, it makes switching tabs more difficult and i now constantly accidentally close tabs. I use the middle mouse button to close tabs and would like to remove the close button.

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Take a look at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/add-option-to-hide-x-from-tabs-on-sidebar/idc-p/90232

[jejerjajojuj]

As long as "customize toolbar..." remains, you'd think it would still be on all the nav bars. Top, side . . . whichever. Just "customize..." or "customize bars..." and, well, it would have to actually work on the sidebar, too. For legacy reasons, I guess, the sidebar and the bar(s) on top were not really doing the same things, before, but now it seems like they're just preferences within the same "domain" (in a math sense, not networking).

I'm not saying it's like "bad" in some really clear way, but it does sort of betray that the app is sort of between two worlds, right now. Like there were two different ideas of how people will be customizing their browser, and some committee couldn't decide, so they made a weird compromise where both things exist and have little coordination between each other.

[geoffreydebelie]

I really would like the ability to hide the vertical tabs. I enabled vertical tabs because then the horizontal tabs disappear, but I want to use my custom vertical tabs extension (for example Tab Center Reborn). Having vertical tabs twice is overkill.

Is there a userChrome.css tweak?

Search field inside the sidebar to look for tabs.

Ability to show/hide the mute/audio overlays, especially needed when using the extension Auto Mute Tab

Ability to hide the close overlay button, I can already close tabs with middle click.

Ability to hide the new tab button.

Hover should display the URL.

[Qlaras]

In 'Customize Sidebar' -> Sidebar settings-> under 'Vertical Tabs' there is a 'Hide tabs and sidebar' button.  'Hide tabs and sidebar' does only appear once Vertical Tabs are enabled.

You can undo it by clicking the 'Show Sidebar' icon in the top left corner (Or using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+ALT+Z).

[geoffreydebelie]

I can't hide the small sidebar (=native vertical tabs), while also hiding the horizontal tabs. That was what I was trying to say.

[geoffreydebelie]

Apparently, using userChrome.css my problem is solved

sidebar-main{
  display: none !important;
}

[big9]

Great, enjoying it so far. It would be great if the top of the window is modified to be 'dragable' (just like in MS edge) when in fullscreen mode.

[geoffreydebelie]

Indeed, it makes sense to add a toolbar of 2px so the window can easily be dragged.

[Propheticus]

Love the fact Firefox now has (native) vertical tabs. Two wishes:

• Tabbed sidebar to have separate pages of tabs, possibly with default container associated (like Zen's workspaces).
• The ability to move the sidebar to the right, with the vertical tabs on the left.

[Qlaras]

You can move the sidebar to the right. Under 'Customize Sidebar' there is an option for exactly that!

[Phoenix_F]

The implementation is awesome, Thank you, Firefox team!, now I would like to have a better transition between "only bookmarks toolbar in new tab page" so bookmarks toolbar don't take space of the sidebar with vertical tabs enabled and when disappears after clicking in a page you don't get a weird resize of the web view page and the sidebar that make it feeling a little clunky.

[Stockholm1628]

I HATE this so much.  Why the hell is is on the wrong side????  For years, we have been trained to see the tabs as a drop down on the RIGHT side, not the left... and I dont see any option to change it.

Why has this been FORCED on Firefox users?  I am finding very little reason to use firefox, as I preferred non-collapsed titles in a horizontal lauyout.  I do a lot of research, and the vertical is annoying as all hell and it takes up so much screen real estate if I want to see window titles.  I prefer having a slim bar at the top. 

MAKE THE TAB LAYOUT a CHOICE.  Forcing users into one random persons preferences is the height of condescension.  No, there are people who do NOT like this new layout, and even worse, not even given the choice.  Just waking up and having awful UI forced on us.

[maestroj]

This is why we can't have nice things. There's a proper way to ask for a change.

[Qlaras]

Two of your complaints are fixable under 'Customize Sidebar.'

1) You can disable Vertical Tabs entirely (can also do this by right-clicking on the sidebar button in the top left corner and select 'Disable Vertical Tabs.')

2) There is an option to 'Move sidebar to the right.'

[sephigruen]

Happy to see expand on hover as a high priority! Related to that, I'd love to see the option to make the expanded sidebar float. Right now it shifts the layout of the website and on a small screen like my netbook's that's a hassle.

I already asked for this in the old thread, but this one is the place to go now, so I guess i'ts alright?

[lovelyjubbly]

Just came to say I'm really enjoying this feature, I'm getting previous vertical real estate back. The ability to move the sidebar to the right is thoughtful too, I didn't see that in Edge's implementation; despite Edge's reputation I find its space-saving features above other browsers, now on par with Firefox. 

Looking forward to the "Expanding vertical tabs on hover" feature in the future!

[aDena]

I've been trying out vertical tabs for a few days now and I'm getting used to them.

It's true that it gives you more space to navigate!

I do have a few criticisms, though: for videos (like YouTube), the "mute" button takes up too much space and is often missclicked, also I'd prefer a play/pause button instead.

Customization of vertical tabs is too weak, and should be made possible by customizing the existing toolbar.

Unrelated to vertical tabs, but still in the same topic : following on from the "space savings", I'd really appreciate a new display option for the personal bar and toolbar that would display them when the mouse is over it (at the top for me), like the Windows taskbar.

[Anonymous]

I can't minimize my sidebar(vertical tabs) into just icons when "Hide tabs and sidebar" is checked.

I want the sidebar to show only icons and be hideable using Alt + Ctrl + Z even when "Hide tabs and sidebar" is checked.

I hope this feature is implemented

[Aliday]

Hello! I use FF at least from version 2 or 3.
I like old behavior when "show sidebars" button closes and opens last sidebar. Now it closes current sidebar and reopen nothing. If i click it again it opens the left small panel where I should make my old choice again.

I have and an idea how to make it better for new and old users:

Can it save it's status when I hide it using "show sidebar" button and reopen last panel if it was opened when I hided side bar previous time?

if it had opened panel - open it gain
if it hadn't any open panel - show only small button column?

A new users will not hide whole panel this way, so its not a problem for them
a new behavior really make me mad, so I have reverted it with sidebar.revamp = false in about:config