Discussion - Set Aside Tabs and Warn on Close

Hi Insiders, we have received a lot of feedback about how you would like to close your tabs with the option of easily finding and reopening them later as you move between different workflows. Specifically, many of you are asking for the Tab Set Aside feature from the previous version of Microsoft Edge to be brought back. Some of you are also asking for a prompt to help avoid losing all your tabs such that you can’t find them again if you accidentally close the browser.

• Ask users if they want to close all tabs when they close a browser window
• Bring the tab set aside feature from the current version of Microsoft Edge

Each of these requests seem related to the fact that many of you have a lot of tabs open at once across many tasks and workflows. This leads to a situation where it can often be difficult to manage all of your tabs at the same time, and each additional tab makes it difficult to deal with all of the rest (e.g. tabs get smaller, harder to read each titles, many similar tab icons begin to blur together, etc.). But it can also be scary to close tabs and declutter your workspace, for fear of not being able to find things again later if you need to. We have definitely experienced this problem ourselves, observed it in our research and conversations with users, and agree it is an area where we want to invest in tools to help you be more productive across various tasks. We are actively investigating the best way to address this problem and would love your help and input as we proceed to make sure we get the experience just right.

We have looked through your feedback, and there are definitely some very valid reasons for why there was value in the Set Aside feature such as: Helping you pick up on a task later without leaving the tabs open when you aren’t using them, organizing your tabs into groups related to a similar task, and a short term home for more transient tasks that didn’t warrant saving in a permanent location such as Favorites.

We also reviewed feedback on the Set Aside feature itself from people actually using it in the previous version of Microsoft Edge, and there were some very valid critiques on how it worked and how it could be improved. For example, the Set Aside buttons being in a location where they were often accidentally clicked causing some to think their tabs had disappeared, requests to be able to set aside a subset of the currently open tabs rather than “all or nothing”, or requests to rename and personalize tab groups further to more easily find them again later.

The request for a prompt before closing the browser also feels related, because if people could always confidently find and reopen any of their previous tabs, then there would be less fear or concern about losing tabs if they are accidently closed. This would allow people to feel free to declutter and reduce the number of open tabs with no fear about finding them later if needed, and more easily focus on the subset of tabs they are working on now.

As we begin this journey of investigating how best to address these requests, we are asking for your help. Please continue to tell us more about your experience with Set Aside and closing tabs in Microsoft Edge, why these features are important to you in which types of tasks, what did and didn’t work for you about previous implementations, and how you would improve on these scenarios going forward.