SOLVED

Vertical Tabs

Brass Contributor

The ever shrinking tab sizes in Chrome/Edge as you open new tabs is a really bad UX. One reason I often keep too many tabs open is because I can't read the title to decide which of them I could close. The tab bar becomes difficult to use as it grows, and compounding the problem, less likely that I'm able to shrink it, as I can't read the titles.

 

Vertical tabs, placed on the left or the right side of the window, next to the content, solves this issue. It also allows for more vertical space to be dedicated to the web site. Vertical screen real estate is at a premium, for example, on a typical Windows laptop with a 16:9 screen and the massive task bar on the bottom. The tradeoff is that pages will be in a smaller space horizontally, however, given that most web pages scroll vertically and use extra horizontal space poorly or not at all, and are responsive nowadays anyway, this would still definitely be a huge net benefit in my opinion.

 

I'll be forever using Edge if this feature is implemented, and implemented well, cross-platform (not through some sort of hacky browser extension or Electron/Vivaldi-like "solution"). I'm sure many people would agree.

23 Replies

I agree and would also greatly appreciate the option to use a vertical tab placement to be able to keep track of more than 10 tabs. I think the way Vivaldi has solved it is sympathetic to me.

Tab Groups are coming to Chromium. :)
best response confirmed by melvynadam (Microsoft)
Solution

@sambul95 Tab Groups only partially solve one of the problems mentioned by the OP. They don't solve the real estate issue and I'd argue they're only a partial solution to the UX issue. Vertical tabs are a game changer and Edge needs them.

Agree. We need vertical tabs. Tab grouping NOT that thing, that will be usable.
Tree style tab - THAT is the role model.

Vertical tabs would be wonderful for those with workflows that require lots of context shifting. I usually have 20+ tabs open at one time and when they become small, it makes it very hard to tell which is which.

+1 for this feature request. I use Vivaldi for this very reason. Vertical tabs offer a far superior UI for web browsing, so it's disappointing that few browsers support them.

I totally agree. I will be a Microsoft Edge user once vertical tabs come out but they introduced it on March 31 and I got all excited. Here it is July 1st and it still isn't out. When is the vertical tabs option going to come out? Till then I am still a Google Chrome user. 

@gwelch55 Some canary builds are coming with vertical tabs. Its not a flag though.

cjc2112_2-1596854095900.png

 

cjc2112_0-1596854040578.png

cjc2112_1-1596854068881.png

 

Thanks fro screens. Installed canary (86.0.601.0), but cannot see those.

@Pavlyukoff They got removed yesterday in an update and I am really disappointed. I lost all my tabs that were in the vertical layout and I was just starting to get used to the layout. I honestly don't know why they removed it.

 

Edit: Its back now.

Edit: Nope its gone

Edit: Its back

Edit: ... its missing yet again.

What's wrong with using the Collection feature.

@Oldschool2085, try to use Firefox with TreeStyleTab addon or even Vivaldi for a couple of days.

Collections is little more usable than bookmarks - not more.

Just wondering. Do not like  the real estate loss with Vivaldi.@Pavlyukoff 

Apples and oranges. As @Pavlyukoff correctly stated, Collections are just glorified bookmarks. Vertical tabs provide a completely different and far superior browsing experience. Right now, I have 20 tabs open, so all the tab titles are truncated and I have to navigate based solely on the favicons displayed in the tabs. With the tabs arranged vertically, there would be no truncation. It's disappointing that Microsoft promised vertical tabs many months ago, but this feature is still not implemented.

@bkonia Also, when are scrollable tabs coming? Legacy Edge and Firefox have them and they don't require a significant learning curve like vertical tabs do.

@gykf_ I appreciate V-tabs and use this feature. However, it is only enabled/available on one of my two laptops, although I have the same Dev builds on both of them.

Is this a function of screen size or am I missing something?
Thanks for any insight ...

Ben 

@benpal It's in A/B test which means it's randomly tested. I'm in Canary version and I still don't get Vertical Tabs...

@jeanBlog Thank you for response. I assumed the test was over. 

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by melvynadam (Microsoft)
Solution

@sambul95 Tab Groups only partially solve one of the problems mentioned by the OP. They don't solve the real estate issue and I'd argue they're only a partial solution to the UX issue. Vertical tabs are a game changer and Edge needs them.

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