Switching between tabs using keyboard shortcut
In Firefox you can switch between two recently used tabs by pressing CTRL-TAB. Would be great to have this feature in Edge Chromium! Currently, CTRL-TAB switches between all open tabs.
Forum Discussion
Michael_Buchner I just switched from Google Chrome to test out Microsoft Edge and the option to "toggle" between two tabs is a must for me. The best option I found was to bring over this extension from the Google Chrome store and it seems to work flawlessly in edge: "Alt + Q Switch Recent Active Tabs".... it used to be free... they may be asking .99 cents for it now? I hope this helps other users who are looking into this, thx!
Alt + Q Switch Recent Active Tabs - Chrome Web Store (google.com)
- Elliot Kirk
Microsoft
Hi Michael_Buchner, we are investigating ways to make Tab switching hotkeys more usable. Would you expect that CTRL+Shift only ever switch between the last two tabs? If more how many? What scenarios do you have that necessitate the rapid swapping of tabs? This information will help us better understand the underlying jobs to be done, and help us craft better solutions. Thanks - Elliot
Would you expect that CTRL+Shift only ever switch between the last two tabs? If more how many?Elliot Kirk: For reference, Firefox lets you switch between the six latest tabs, in MRU (most recently used) order.
In Opera, on the other hand, you can switch between all you open tabs in MRU order.
Ideally I would like to see no limit (like Opera) but I you are going to cap it, I would say four is the absolute minimum.
It's this lack of functionality in Chrome that has prevented me, and many with me, from using Chrome as my main browser ever since it was released. It is frequently described by non-Chrome users as being a blocker for switching. This feature has been requested for Chrome/Chromium for over a decade by hundreds of users, but Google simply refuses to implement it. As mentioned many times in the linked thread, it's a basic usability feature that even IE11 had (available as an option in the settings). It's akin to Alt+Tab for programs: you expect that feature across all OSs. Not including it would be a regression.
Elliot Kirk wrote:What scenarios do you have that necessitate the rapid swapping of tabs?
I use it constantly: when I compare info in two (or more) tabs by quickly switching back and forth; when I quickly want return to my previous tab without closing the current tab I'm viewing, etc...
If you were to implement this I would make Edge my main browser, and you can be sure that you would gain many of the users that have refused to switch to Chrome so far because of this. You would have a significant feature over Chrome, and gain a lot a goodwill with many disgruntled non-Chrome users, and that can only be a good thing
Hi Elliot Kirk, Firefox switches between last two tabs, so I personally would prefer to have the same feature in Edge Chromium as well. You wrote CTRL+Shift - why not making it configurable to have this feature either on CTRL+Shift or CTRL+Tab? Thanks Michael
- I don't really think there is a need to make it configurable, as anything other than Ctrl+Tab would be non-standard; one reason for adding this feature is, besides from being extremely useful (I'd go so far and call it "necessary"), is the standard behavior of specifically Ctrl+Tab in other browsers.
Elliot Kirk In both Firefox and Chrome, CTRL-Tab takes you backwards through previous tabs and does not open them (shows mini preview) in reverse order as long as you hold CTRL as you press Tab. It might as well be a browser standard feature across them all. And it would mesh well with new sleeping tabs feature so you don't end up waking currently unused tabs.
I agree with Lance808 that ctrl-tab should have the same behavior as in FF which is to alternate between 2 most recent tabs. Edge cycles through all tabs which is kind of useless when lots of tabs are open (as most people usually have) because then I would rather click on the tab I need. Alternating between 2 tabs is a common use case when one needs to copy something from one page to another etc. Note that pressing ctrl-tab-tab should go to the 3rd most recent tab etc. like in FF. This way you are able to easily navigate to any most recent tab (much more useful than just cycling through all of them in sequence).
Lastly, when I click the close button on any tab, the most recently open tab before the closed tab should be the one that becomes active.
Since some people might prefer cycling through all, I would say this could be an option. This is the main reason why I won't use Edge.
