Tab Islands in Opera Air – Essential for Focus and Peace

[MrTeatime]

MrTeatime @WarMongerGamesMalta last edited by

@WarMongerGamesMalta, I remember when part of the Opera team left to create Vivaldi—I even gave it a try, but in the end, I found myself coming back to Opera. My 20+ years with Opera have been a cycle of leaving and returning, always around those moments of major changes, removals, and returns of the very features that make people love this browser.

Back to the point—I fully support any improvements for neurodivergent users, because I feel like Opera Air was designed with us in mind. And as you rightly said, we’re on the spectrum, which means our needs can vary greatly. Personally, the solutions you propose wouldn’t work well for me—I use a 15” screen, and I’d lose too much space. But for those working on larger screens, it might be a great addition without any downside.

I’m actually curious—does the Opera team consult their ideas with neurodivergent users? That could be a game-changer in shaping Opera Air’s future.

✨Opera user since 2001—I've seen things you wouldn't believe.
✨My kids use Opera GX, so I guess I did something right.
✨ 20+ years of loyalty… where’s my badge?
✨ Since Oct 2025: Vivaldi dedicated user — finally everything I need in one product.

[LaurelIrene]

LaurelIrene last edited by

100% its one of my most used/favorite features in Opera - it needs to be added to Air

[non-gamer1234]

non-gamer1234 last edited by

100%

[adildsx]

adildsx last edited by

I agree, I really like the tab islands. It would be nice to have them in Opera air too!

[salimalbitar]

salimalbitar @mohamedsalah last edited by

@mohamedsalah said in Tab Islands in Opera Air – Essential for Focus and Peace:

@MrTeatime We are already big fans of tab islands!, we are exploring even further ways to improve the experience to fit into Opera Air, stay tuned for future tab management experience on Opera Air

as I perfectionist, I know you're trying your best, to give us the.. perfect tab management system..

but as a user we want something now lol
because we can't even use extensions from the chrome store, or create our own extensions

thank you in advance
يا فخر العرب

[Mlipka]

Mlipka Opera @salimalbitar last edited by

Hey Guys, your commitment and engagement is amazing! It's visible in those threads.
Regarding Tab Islands, as @MohamedSahal mentioned we love this feature too.

We have many ideas on developing AIR, including tab islands. However, it can't be just a "copy".
For sure, we want it to be more AIR-like. So, it will happen in some way, but I can't share when exactly.

[oiurys]

oiurys @Mlipka last edited by

@Mlipka Any predictions? It's been almost 6 months since this thread was created, and several people have already highlighted the importance of tab islands for productivity, which is the purpose of Opera Air. So, it could just be a copy, yes, it's better than not having one. It already worked very well in Opera One, so it will work well in Opera Air, which has a similar architecture

[Mlipka]

Mlipka Opera @oiurys last edited by

@oiurys
I don't have currently any predictions.

What I meant by "in some way" it might also mean developing better solution for increasing productivity than tab islands.

[mixchild]

mixchild @Mlipka last edited by

@Mlipka Opera GX has flag to activate Tab Islands why don't you just let users do the same with Opera Air

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @mixchild last edited by

@mixchild Because tabs islands is not implemented yet on Opera Air, most probably? Because Opera Air aims at a different audience that, maybe, don't need tabs islands at the moment?

[mixchild]

mixchild @leocg last edited by

@leocg Interesting, how come Tab Islands is the second most requested feature after Dark Mode? and after dark ambient implementation it's the number 1 most requested feature with 22K views, what is the point of this forum or opera blog if developers spend more time explaining why the feature isn't gonna be implemented than time it would take to integrate a flag to activate a function

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @mixchild last edited by

@mixchild Views are not a synonym for request or support for the request.

Even for actual requests, the forum may not be the best parameter for measuring it since just a very few percentage of users post here.

[mixchild]

mixchild @leocg last edited by

@leocg so people who take their time of the day and post here aren't voicing wider user base's wish regarding to feature to organize tabs? Opera Air was suppose to be organization and simplicity. tab islands should have singular color white or gray

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @mixchild last edited by

@mixchild Nope, they are voicing their own wishes.

Anyway, there's no way to know if something has a large amount of requests based only on forums posts.

[mixchild]

mixchild @leocg last edited by

@leocg There is yes - Views on forum and Upvotes on reddit - tab islands has the most views after dark mode which has been implemented already

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @mixchild last edited by

@mixchild Active users on the forum and even on Reddit represents less that 1% of the Opera users.

[BETTERTHENCHROME]

BETTERTHENCHROME last edited by

Agreed!!!

[BETTERTHENCHROME]

BETTERTHENCHROME last edited by

Agreed, I believe a clean workspace is essential for focus. With tab islands, your workspace won't be so cluttered.