Discussion: Add ability to close tabs via double-click

Microsoft

Hey Insiders, thanks for your continued feedback to help us improve Microsoft Edge! Recently we have noticed a growing trend in requests to support double clicking on a tab to close it. Even just receiving this feedback is helpful in highlighting the importance of efficiency and ease when managing and closing tabs, and also communicates a user problem that the tab close button can sometimes be difficult to interact with quickly.

 

As for the best way to address this user problem, we’d like to get additional context from you on the benefits and risks of different options. While double clicking on a tab can indeed be a very easy and quick way to close a tab, it also comes with the risk that if users are quickly clicking to switch between tabs, they might accidentally close a tab unintentionally by clicking on one twice. Given accidentally closing tabs is another top pain point users have shared with us, we want to be especially careful that we aren’t making that problem worse. We also wanted to share that another existing mouse-centric method for quickly closing a tab with a single click is to middle (mouse-wheel) click on a tab, which it could be argued is easier and faster than double clicking, though of course not everyone has a mouse that supports middle (mouse-wheel) click.

 

Given the potential risks of double clicking and the alternative middle click solution discussed here, please let us know if and why you feel double clicking is a superior method. We're also curious to know if you have any additional solutions to the problem of easily and quickly closing a tab that haven’t been discussed and avoid some of the risks discussed here. Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions, we couldn't do this without you! 

 

- The Microsoft Edge Team

165 Replies

Double clicking on tabs to close them is disastrous. It would totally ruin my browsing experience if it was a thing. imagine every time I clicked on a tab, which sometimes I do it twice, would have my tab closed, very frustrating. it's the main mouse button.

other than that, there is really no point in doubling clicking on tabs to close them. 

 

  1.  it doesn't save time. if someone wants to double click on a tab to close it, they can already do so, not even with 2 but with 1 click, just click on the X mark! that's the most obvious thing about each tab.
  2. if it's about speed, double clicking is no way faster than clicking 1 time on the X mark. whoever thinks otherwise, lets record it in milliseconds and compare the results.
  3. There is Middle Mouse Button click on each tab to close them.
It would very obviously be a toggle-able option, but yes, this idea is stupid and pointless.

Hello @MissyQ 

 

I see that it can cause problems by accidentally closing tabs using the primary mouse button

 

I am right-handed and use the right mouse button as the primary
The left button as a secondary

 

I don't see any problems if I double-click the secondary button on the tab to close it

@MissyQ I love double-click to close tab and I miss it in Edge! It is possible to double-click tab to close in Firefox and Vivaldi. It makes closing tabs easier and faster as I don't have to aim for stupid small X sign. I never accidently closed tabs by using this feature. There is no reason to be afraid of it, but you can make it an optional feature. 

What if as an accessibility feature, they offered an option to make the X mark bigger?

I have been middle-clicking on a tab to close it in every browser I've used since tabs first appeared in browsers back in the early 2000s ... and I haven't even had a mouse to middle-click with since moving to laptops around 10 years ago. My only temporary issue was on my last laptop change from one where a two-finger tap was a 'middle click' to my current one where 'middle click' is a three fingered tap. I too would hope that any double-click to close a tab would be an option that can be turned OFF.

 

Then again, my opinion probably doesn't matter as the desktop and mobile Edge teams appear to have no interest in addressing any - let alone all - of the issues that are preventing me from even thinking about using Edge to browse with other than the more and more tedious and depressing test (usually takes all of one minute) of each new desktop and mobile Edge releases to see if there's any sign of any of those issues being addressed (which there never is - I have the same list of issues with both desktop and mobile Edge as I had last November). Frankly this endless stream of 'we're so excited ...' posts that sound like some over-eager bouncing, tail wagging puppy about things I don't care about and deafening silence about everything I do just tells me your teams' priorities are so different to mine I'd be foolish to rely on your development programme.

@MissyQ This is a disastrous idea. Why do we need this?

Personally, I have been using the middle-click to close the tab (also sometimes the Ctrl+W) for way too long and do not find the need for double click to close the tab.
If double-clicking to close the tab be implemented please by default keep it off because I am pretty sure I or someone else would accidentally close the tab if it were on by default.
It's like double-edged sword. Need to implement very carefully with default off toggle option. Whoever wants to use this feature must enable it from settings. It should be quick double click like we used to click on desktop icons. This may be helpful for some and useless for others but I would definitely like try this feature :thumbs_up:

@MissyQ The double-left-click solution is not so good for me, but still great progress. 

I read all the comments so far and I want to say that this utility is necessary and essential.

I usually use the laptop with my mouse but sometimes I can only use the touchpad when I'm in a lecture. When I have my mouse, it is not a big deal to find a small 'x' on the tab, although it costs my patience. However, when I have to use the touchpad, the problem begins to show. God knows how exhausted it is to click all those 'x'.

For your concern, I have a solution. Using single-right-click is the best for me because I never use the right-click on tab, the original right-click function can be fulfilled by Shift+right-click or Ctrl+right-click. And I suppose no one will misapply the right-click as the left-click.

Nevertheless, the solution above may need to change the user habit, which may not be your preference, so maybe we can close the tab via Shift+right-click or Ctrl+right-click and keep the right-click as it was.

Thanks for reading.

@MissyQ 

 

Great to see this being brought up. I have proposed this feature previously and I'll share why it can be useful:

 

  1. Surely, it will be an opt-in toggle, like strict tracking prevention. Have many genuinely wanted it to be the default? Making it an opt-in toggle will remove most of the risks & drawbacks completely. It should not be the default behavior simply because it'd be so different than every other browser.
  2. Laptops vastly outnumber desktops these days & very few people use external mice with laptops. Thus, it's likely most Edge users' only pointing device is actually the touchpad. Closing a tab is genuinely faster and easier with a double-tap of the tab, instead of tapping the "X". The target is far larger: there is no debate whether it's easier / faster from a UX point of view. Simply how much faster and how likely / severe the risks. The speed is not simply how fast people can click, but how quickly they can reach their target. 
  3. Of course, as seasoned browser users (e.g., posting in the Insider community) , we're all quite familiar with the "X" and we probably have much better pointer precision than the general population. I rarely ever misclick throughout the entire day.
  4. A middle-click is not a common UX pattern for most touchpad users, often requiring a keyboard shortcut plus a tap. 
  5. I would appreciate this setting not synced between systems, i.e., I genuinely dislike it on desktops (as I can double-click much faster), but I far, far prefer it on laptops (where the bottleneck is precision, not double-click speed).

 

@ikjadoon 

This can be solved if they increase the size of X on tabs.

@MissyQ  cmd c cmd v from https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/top-feedback-summary-for-october-20/m-p/1808250/h...

 

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Add ability to close tabs via double-click

 

just install https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/double-click-closes-tab/megplcpdkmjjoondippkedoaidkeikcm now 

 

plus it depends where you click double. if we click on the page or directly on the tab. it's a big difference, because if you do on the page we get identical problem like with the extension (you close tabs when we don't want it, for example during modification of texts etc.). so we need to activate deactivate the extension continuosly, because during workflow 1 a double click is ok, during workflow 2 this is simply a ugly option.

 

double click on tab it's ok, but should be an option, not default. i still think close to left (like suggested) is much more important than a double click close tab. yes close left can be done via extension too...

 

EDIT: and you still need to go to tab bar before you need to click 2x. i think the best solution is to show a x once i click 2x on the page, so i just need to click this x to close the tab without need to move the mouse. maybe even an option double click not allowed for website x,y,z,....

@edgesuggestions Still, it would be better for Edge if MS does its own double close feature but I think this idea is truly not needed and this idea is disastrous.

Thank you @MissyQ for creating this discussion.

This scenario didn't cover Windows 10 on touch mode or touch devices where double click is not easy in touch devices. I still see people who prefer notification where ask do you want to close this tab and also groups where they share concern it is annoying. 

Other than what everyone discussed so far, I would like request a design. It is possible to add special icon near tabs when user click on it set tabs to close with one click and when user click to disable it then it shows notification for close. 

There is possible to define stay options , like for example sometimes I am browsing net and right click and open multiple tabs and view them one by one and close them right away. In some case, I open tabs and it takes longer. So we could set like if tab has been opened for 5 minutes (this set by user) then close it with one click but when it has been open more than that, then ask for notification. I believe there is a need to usability study on how user interact with tabs and close it. In addition, we could also check delay between click. Sometimes accidental close is like when I open multiple tabs and I quickly close 5 of them and accidently close incorrect one and in this case , with certain behavior like old tabs it shows warning only for them.

More importantly, it would be nice to have ability like right click on tab and reopen recently closed tab.

 

@Kam like the auto reload page feature.... you finish to write and then an autoreload remove all what you wrote (in this case a double click). cool that this website keeps the saved version, so i don't need to rewrite all again.

@HotCakeX  

other than that, there is really no point in doubling clicking on tabs to close them. 

 

  1.  it doesn't save time. if someone wants to double click on a tab to close it, they can already do so, not even with 2 but with 1 click, just click on the X mark! that's the most obvious thing about each tab.
  2. if it's about speed, double clicking is no way faster than clicking 1 time on the X mark. whoever thinks otherwise, lets record it in milliseconds and compare the results.
  3. There is Middle Mouse Button click on each tab to close them.

i don't agree at all. for more context check other comment too. 

reason why 2x is usefull:

1) if you close 1000tabs in few minutes/hours your hand/fingers start to have pain after a lot of cmd w. 

2) trackpad doesn't have mid bar (and all depends how you use the setting too)

3) close tab requires moving to tab bar, which is a waste of time if you open 300 tabs in batch and need to close/go to next them later...

4) see suggestion 2x + x icon near mouse, which would fix all issues.

5) we need to remember that tab size is small if 200-500 tabs are opened too. this is why i use extension, cmd v, double click etc to close them faster. (and to avoid hand pain i generally make a mix of them, first 5 minutes method 1, then method 2, then method 3).

 

about 3: if you need to batch click follow/like/etc. you need to keep mouse position on the same position, with x on tab you would lose that too (this mean follow action requires 2-5x more time). For users, that are not datahoarder, probably is difficult to understand what i'm saying, or why we need to do that.

 

EDIT: so it's all depends from your actual workflow. i still think a double click extension is much better, since you can activate and disable it much faster too.

 

like wrote before, 2x close should not be the default setting. the 2x is not a bad idea, but they need to implement it in a smart way.

 

@Kam how can be a danger if you need to click 2x then move the mouse 1 cm and click an x icon...