Add an option to automatically collapse other tab groups when switching to a new one

[DeyanSlavov]

When using tab grouping in Firefox, all groups stay open at once. This leads to clutter and unnecessary memory use when switching between different contexts.

It would be very useful to have a native option that automatically closes or suspends tabs in other groups when a new tab group is opened.

Example use case:

• I have several tab groups for different projects — “Work,” “Research,” and “Personal.”

• When I open the “Work” group, I want Firefox to automatically collapse the other groups.

• This keeps my workspace clean and focused.

Benefits:

• Keeps the tab bar clean and organized

• Saves memory and CPU resources

• Helps focus by reducing distractions from other projects

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[hsandt]

I also have too many unfolded tabs which makes it difficult to drag and drop tab groups to reorder them (I have to scroll a lot), so this would make it much faster.

As a bonus, we could also have:

- a one-time action in the right-click menu to Fold all tab groups or Fold all other tab groups (useful when you want to clean up things once but then open several tab groups to work with)

- a right-click menu action to "pin" some tab groups as "never auto-fold this group" (combined with the OP's idea, this would allow to keep 2-3 important tab groups unfolded as you work with them, instead of being limited to 1). Problem is, it may be hard to keep track of such tab groups (adding an icon could help though), so we'd need another menu item to clean up all "no auto-fold" markers, which may become more complicated...