Introducing Workspaces in Edge | New feature

MVP

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Workspaces

 

you can create multiple Workspaces in Edge, have tabs in each of them, and when you close all Edge windows and open Edge again, you still have your workspaces, it's like a combination of tabs set aside + tab groups + pinned tabs

 

experimental feature in canary, probably CFR. works really well so far

95 Replies
So, late July and I still don't see Workspaces in my Canary build. :thinking_face:
Approximately August 16 it seems like the command line switch no longer works in Canary? I had the feature working for a month or two. I'm wondering if I could have been removed from the rollout, or if the command line switch has changed, or if the feature has been shelved?

I had trouble turning on the recently announced scrollbar style as well. But my command line string for just workspaces appears to be correct.

Workspaces is arguably the BEST feature we have seen added to Edge EVER. We have demoed Workspaces to all our heavy web browsing customers and ALL said they will switch from Chrome or Firefox when Workspaces is released.

 

Microsoft Edge Development Team - Workspaces is awesome! Thank You! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Prioritize and release Workspaces!

 

Just updated to dev 97.0.1069.0, "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge Dev\Application\msedge.exe" --profile-directory="Default" -enable-features=msWorkspaces,msRightSideWorkspacesButton switches not work anymore. workspaces button is gone. Please make it back

@Jeffz9527 -- This is an EXTREMELY distressing find and let's hope we get a reply from Microsoft @HotCakeX  on this very soon explaining what is going on. Is it possible Workspaces enablement has been moved into flags instead of the command-line only? I can tell you it's working great in the beta version using the command line enablement.

 

Joe

 

@HotCakeX please give us any update regarding this feature

@pzasuwa I'm pretty sure that @HotCakex is not a Microsoft employee.

Need my Workspaces back please!!!!

It is gone on Version 97.0.1069.0 (Official build) dev (64-bit).

Why remove one of the best features???? It is just great! One for Personal, One for Work, one for Finances, etc... Open/Close with a signle click.
I never got it, being a controlled rollout. :frowning_face:

As of 27 December 2021...

 

Workspaces are still working in the production version:

Version 96.0.1054.62 (Official build) (64-bit)

Time will tell if they disappear for everyone when production shifts over to the 97.x branch.

@JimGrisham @HotCakeX Here we are, EIGHT months later, and I have NEVER had Workspaces. The thing is, in my use of Edge (all four flavors), I would've been an excellent test bed for that feature. It gets a bit frustrating that M'soft seems to forget about features and they languish in cyber-limbo.

@Dan_AI4GK 

 

If you'd like to play with the feature, you could try creating new browser profiles... perhaps by installing Edge in a VM.

 

(I believe that someone previously stated that the user assignment for these 'controlled-roll-out' features gets chosen at random during/after installation?)

 

I don't suspect that Microsoft has forgotten about this; rather, the team is likely holding it back* until they are more confident in the final form in which it will appear. Let's give them time (yes, perhaps even another year or more) to do user studies and get it right the first time.

 

Perhaps counter-intuitively: the longer it takes to be released, the more likely it will be retained as a long-term feature.


* If I were the project manager (and I'm most definately not), I wouldn't let this sort of thing get released until a) it was much more tested and polished and b) all of the other Edge fires were put out. (We're still in the midst of a pandemic, after all.)


Update 2022-01-12 (since the reply / quick reply buttons are disabled for me right now, for a reason that I can't extract from DevTools):

 

In Edge 96 or earlier, if one had launched Edge with the appropriate command-line flags and then later launched Edge using the normal icon, any workspace windows the user had created just appeared as normal windows.

If Edge was closed and re-opened with the correct command-line flags, the workspace windows that were previous closed would appear and be classified by the correct workspace name/color.

After the v97 update, this behavior changed, and any workspace windows that weren't actually open prior to the update appear to have been lost!



These windows may return after downgrading to Edge 96... but in the meantime: if anyone has been using Workspaces and has not yet updated to v97, make sure you back up those windows before the update occurs on your PC.

Well, I'm not using Pro, so I can't do the VM. Perhaps I'll try an additional browser profile. I agree about making sure a new feature is fully tested, but (and I'm NOT a software engineer) it seems that 8 months is a long time to test a feature.

@HotCakeX 

As of Microsoft EdgeVersion 97.0.1072.55, Workspaces switch no longer works both on my Mac and PCs.

Anyone has the same issue and what's the milestone for this?

@wondong

@HotCakeX

 

I can absolutely confirm that workspaces has been removed as of Edge 97 production release as I've been using it since it was put into beta and recommending it to many others. I had dozens of Workspaces which incredibly improved my productivity. Workspaces WAS THE BEST new feature of Edge and the whole reason I and many others I demoed it to switched from Chrome to Edge.

 

The last few years has seen one bad decision after another at Microsoft:

 

  1. Throwing away the best new feature (Workspaces) in Edge. Yes, I realize it was an experimental feature however simply removing it without ANY COMMUNICATIONS with the community AT ALL shows the shear hubris going on in Redmond.

 

  1. Making it very difficult for customers to switch away from Edge (Windows 11)

 

  1. Adding the Shopping in Microsoft Edge 'feature' (COUPONS FOUND!) and enabling it BY DEFAULT.

 

  1. Releasing Windows 11, Windows Server 2022 and Office 2021 to all EXCEPT those of us who are in the Microsoft Partner Programs and pay thousands of dollars a year for the 'privilege'. Again, NO COMMUNICATIONS to the partner community about this action. Microsoft Partner support simply closes any support ticket opened about this.

 

  1. Zero new innovative developments in Hyper-V and many other client and server areas important for small to medium businesses, developers and IT Pros.

 

I could go on and on but I regress from the topic at hand...

 

Solution:

 

For those in the same boat this is what I did to stay productive and have 99% of the functionality which Workspaces provided:

 

  1. Rollback Edge to version 96.0.1054.62 temporarily:

 

https://pureinfotech.com/rollback-previous-version-microsoft-edge/

 

  1. Install the Tab Porter extension in Edge:

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-porter-export-restore/hjbdgionekajacbeocbgopledpkegkmo

 

  1. Open each of your Edge Workspaces and export them using Tab Porter.

 

  1. Switch to Chrome and install both the Workspaces and Tab Porter extensions:

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workspaces/hpljjefgmnkloakbfckghmlapghabgfa

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-porter-export-restore/hjbdgionekajacbeocbgopledpkegkmo

 

  1. While in a blank Chrome window, Import each of your Edge Workspaces using Tab Porter then save it in the Workspaces extension by clicking +NEW and giving it a name. Rinse and repeat for all your other Workspaces.

 

Regards,

 

Joseph Worrall

Lakewood Communications

Port Townsend, WA

 

Why not just download the Chrome Workspaces extension into Edge? It seems to work. (Not having been one of the fortunate ones to have had Workspaces in Edge.)

Regards,

Dan Fisher AI4GK
Too bad this excellent feature has been dropped. I tried alternative extensions, but they don't do the job as well as this one. :(
It's been a year now. Is this feature still developing? I was looking forward to this feature and still wasn't there yet. Please say it is still in work.