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. 

[amish]

Yes, I would also like it to float instead of shrinking the tab and changes the page layout.

[Astral]

I'm quite sure of your point of view. By contrast, I really like the Zen sidebar!

[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

[Damblor]

Hey,

The new Sidebar look good but if you live in Poland as I am and have Polish as input language, the new shortcuts (Ctrl+Alt+Z and X) won't work since Alt+Z is special character (Ż) same with Alt+X (Ź).

Soo for now I've disabled it completely and may by come back when this feature is production ready.

Edit: For clearance I've tested it on clean Win11 system with Firefox 136.0.1. With English language input work flawless but the moment I've changed to Polish it stopped. I don't know how you handle inputs but something is definitely wrong.

[Aliday]

Windows and almost all programs have such hot keys, how do you handle them?

[Astral]

I like Zen sidebar,to be honest, I'd love to see the sidebar optimized in the direction of zen: more freedom of sidebar customization (drag and drop extensions or tool ICONS into the sidebar, and the "mute" button takes up too much space,I wish it was as small and beautiful as zen.

[Astral]

I updated Nightly to the latest version, and I'm happy with the "mute" buttons now.But when the "Expanding vertical tabs on hover" function is disabled, it will revert to the old style, which may be a bug?

 

[JoeySav]

Edge has a double click to close a tab feature that is a toggle option that I really like and got used to and miss on firefox. Could that be added at some point? I tried looking for an extension , but couldn't find one that did what I was looking for.

[vale-1041]

The vertical sidebar is... alright. I don't think I'll be using the feature as I enjoy the legacy layout. One thing that will definitely prevent me from using it is the removal of the "Forget about this site" feature from the history on the sidebar:

[amish]

Hello

I am on latest version of Firefox Desktop on Linux. (v 136.0.2)

I am experimenting with new vertical tabs options. (kind of started liking it)

I am also using many extensions like Bitwarden, Noscript, Greasemonkey etc.

When I see my sidebar, I see Bitwarden icon on bottom left, just above settings (gear) icon.

I dont see option / checkbox to remove Bitwarden icon from sidebar.

I also have Bitwarden icon on top-left Toolbar. I like it there.

How do I remove Bitwarden icon from sidebar, as I do not want two icons of same extension to be visible.

Also curious why is it that only Bitwarden icon is appearing and not Noscript and Greasemonkey?

Dont know if this is Firefox issue or Bitwarden setting somewhere.

Please inform if someone has solution or workaround.

Thank you.

[amish]

Please add "Firefox View" icon to sidebar.

That way single button will take me to "History", "Tabs", "Tabs from other devices" etc.

Then I can remove those History, Tabs etc. icons from sidebar and keep only "Firefox View" icon in sidebar.

Also add "Bookmarks" option in "Firefox View". So then I can remove "Bookmark" icon from side bar too and keep single, "Firefox View" icon in sidebar which will show me rest of options (Tabs, Bookmarks, History etc) when I click it.

Thank you.

[Aliday]

Hello, Amish.

---

@amish wrote:

Please add "Firefox View" icon to sidebar.

---

I have latest mac firefox 136.0.2 (aarch64) on mac. There is only sidebar button and no "Firefox View."

I've check https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-set-tab-pickup-firefox-view article, but can't find it. I though "Show sidebar" option will enable it but no.

Can you suggest how to activate it?

[amish]

Right click anywhere on Toolbar.

Goto Customize toolbar...

Drag and drop the "Firefox view" button wherever you want.

[Aliday]

There is no bookmarks in "firefox view". Search field here also ignores bookmarks. And this panel isn't customizable. I don't understand why it exists without bookmarks...

[mshn-mshn]

Absolutely love it! Thank you folks!

[Windows_Vista]

*Clap* *Clap* Well Done Mozilla finally takes a step forward though I will say though that other though that this sidebar feature could use some improvements and smoothening of the feature and how the sidebar behaves just look at Zen Browser.

We still don't have a Split View Feature in Firefox, also since those AI Features may be Privacy Invasive could you please give us an option to disable it in the Settings at the very least. Also my last complaint here is that the sidebar doesn't get themed when you apply a Special Theme to Firefox.

Vivaldi/Opera GX/Floorp/Zen Browser still has the best sidebar ever because Mozilla refuses to implement good features from those browsers into Firefox.   

[Astral]

Yes, I think it would be more efficient for Mozilla to copy the zen sidebar instead of waiting to hear from more people, because people who have used it have been so positive about it

[Windows_Vista]

Yeah also this is what I don't like about Mozilla they don't like adding interesting or big features that could improve Firefox.

They always like shooting themselves in the foot. But I do agree that they should take from the Zen codebase and merge that stuff into Firefox.

[Holar]

Tab grouping / nesting with arbitrary depth (as in TST, Sideberry, etc) would be a great next step.

A small additional request would be to slightly decrease the opacity of unloaded tabs.

[matt-buckley]

Edit: I should've read the initial post more closely, it seems this is already planned for Firefox 137! Great to hear 😁

Really love this implementation, thanks team! Great to have more screen real estate at the top. One feature that I'd really like to see is the ability to alternate between hiding the sidebar entirely and just having the tab icons show up. At present, using the Ctrl+Alt+Z shortcut on Windows (which doesn't seem to be documented by the way) either:

• Alternates between tab icons and tab names + icons, if the "hide tabs and sidebar" option is disabled.
• Alternates between a hidden sidebar and tab names + icons, if the "hide tabs and sidebar" option is disabled.

Even if I enable the "hide tabs and sidebar" option whilst my tab width is set such that only the tab icons show, when I use the Ctrl+Alt+Z shortcut the full-width tabs still appear. This means I must choose between either being unable to use a full screen (content only) display, as the vertical sidebar doesn't hide itself when enabling full-screen mode as with horizontal tabs, or needing to take up quite a lot of horizontal screen space whenever I want to switch tabs when, for me, just the icons would be sufficient. Even having an extra shortcut to do this would be great!