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Vinci480
Strollin' around
Status: In development

I'm personally a heavy tab user but have always wondered why there is almost no support for tab grouping or customization in the native tab bar in Firefox.

I think making it able to group like Google Chrome does for example or at least giving more access for extensions and add-ons would significantly improve the UI in that regard.

779 Comments
MintMain21
Familiar face

@steel835If you're using Firefox Beta, go to about:config and enable media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.improved-video-controls.enabled for the PiP controls. Might work in Stable too, but that's not what I'm using.

conrad
Strollin' around

This video of the Chrome tab is basically perfect. A smooth, performant native tab grouping is always going to be far superior to any third-party addon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uly5-xWLnA

I'd maybe add a few more options to the group context menu (refresh all tabs in group, copy all tab URLs newline-delimited to clipboard, "sleep" tabs to lower resource usage until they're accessed) but that's about it.

seba14
New member

To me, tab groups are like pinned tabs with a name + multiple tabs instead of just one.

I find them so useful, because they essentially work like a stack (the data structure), when it comes to context switching. You keep adding more tabs/tab groups to the right, and once you close them, the old ones show back up, without having to actively remember the old tabs.
That's why tab groups are also really useful, because they allow easy re-ordering and therefore re-prioritizing of a whole set of tabs. You can decide in which order the tabs will show back up.

Example: I'm working on task A, have a dozen tabs open. Get a message, need to context switch to something else entirely. Now I can just select all the tabs, group them with a name, and effectively "stash" them for later. I get a (mostly) clean slate, so I can focus my attention on the new task B.

The big and very important difference to bookmarks or something like Simple Tab Groups though, is that it requires no active interaction on my part to get the tabs for task A back.
Instead once I'm done with task B, I just naturally close all the tabs I had opened for that task, and now automatically / passively the "stashed" tabs from task A will get opened (or whatever tab / tab group is next depending on tab order). Chrome for example automatically expands a group, if the next tab belongs to a group. Pinned tabs work exactly the same.

This is the reason why bookmarks aren't the right tool for the job here IMO. Because I need to actually remember that I've put something there. I've tried "stashing" things in bookmarks, and I basically forget every time, and never look at them, or way too late.
Bookmarks for me exist to help me if I actively want to visit a specific URL regularly and therefore want to save something permanently. Tabs are much more temporary (even though they can stick around for weeks if it's a busy time).

Separate windows also don't have that same "stash" behavior, they are essentially too separate. They are also more of a hassle to switch between, get lost once you close them, and there doesn't seem to be a good way to bring a whole closed window / set of tabs back again, especially if you closed multiple windows at once etc.

I didn't see anyone else mention this kind of workflow yet, so hope this helps and adds another reason why tab groups are great and should be added.
Tab groups are currently the missing feature why I'm still using Chrome for work atm.

 

marsiskyle
New member

Ayo surelyyyyyyy we just get a Tab groups that works like chrome this year right???????????? surelyyyyyyyyy

 

vko
Strollin' around

I'm sure we will @marsiskyle, I'm sure we will

IxI_JOKER_IxI
Making moves

When there will be a normal grouping of tabs to save space and order

1. Firefox

2 and 3 Chrome

image_2023-03-28_22-26-44.png

 

image_2023-03-28_22-24-44.png

 

image_2023-03-28_22-23-26.png

 

Anonymous
Not applicable

This feature is incredibly important for me when working with many tabs. I would love it if this feature was implemented just like how chrome does it!

I've been interested in switching to Firefox for a long time but this is the one thing holding me back. I've been waiting till Firefox implements this feature.

Visions
Making moves

I am writing this from Brave browser, and someone who is studying coding and has 15+ tabs open at all the times, tab grouping is something that I can't live without now, that I saw it exist in a lot of other browsers, and I am afraid this is the feature that prevents me from using Firefox more. It's an incredibly handy feature helping to organize all the tabs, and no, there aren't good enough extensions that could replace it on Firefox.

So please, consider implementing it. 

gevorgnazaryan
New member

Add grouping please 😫.

Dobrel
New member

It would be very useful

gybesnowman
New member

It would be very useful to have this feature implemented!

PeterWacker
New member

Still nothing, incredible....

BelFox
Making moves

Dear @Jon, this idea has been the most requested feature for many months now.

I have the feeling that the design and development of Tab Grouping hasn't even started yet (based on reading Firefox Nightly news). I really hope I'm wrong.

But can we at least get an honest update from Mozilla soon? It baffles me that nothing is communicated at all. I expect more from my beloved browser builder!

JustForVotes
Strollin' around

now it's been almost a year since the status was set to "exploring more" and nothing is happening.
no information if anything happens at all on this topic, nothing!
why is there no feedback? why is nothing happening?
it feels like the developers are avoiding this.

please finally give feedback if this feature will ever come or if the developers don't want it. this will make it easier to turn your back on firefox since they don't give a d*mn about the community's wishes.

communication is the key and the magic word, so speak to your community!

Jon
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hey all, thanks for your patience and for following up in this thread—not to mention the many great, detailed posts highlighting the importance of a feature like this! We put together a list with some of the top ideas that haven't been updated/may be pending a response (including tab grouping along with a few others) and will be working with the product team to hopefully provide some updates here soon. Stay tuned.