Vertical Tabs
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by@scrapefour And why vertical tabs should be considered a basic feature? Why Opera should reintroduce vertical tabs in its browsers?
I'm not against vertical tabs, but I don't really see it as something urgent.
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scrapefour last edited by
@leocg Well for starters vertical tabs is actually considered a core functionality of a browser now. Opera is the only remaining browser that doesn't have.
I'd definitely consider this urgent given the declining market share and public outcry from hundreds of thousands of users on this forum, reddit and other socials that they would implement such a basic feature.
Honestly, it's a very bad look when the majority of the user base is asking for this one feature and operas stance is we don't care enough about our user base to do it.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@scrapefour And why it should be considered a core feature? Why should people even care about having vertical tabs on their browsers?
I don't really think that morre than 1%, maybe 2% of the users care or even know about vertical tabs.
There are just around 12 people asking for vertical tabs on this topic. Maybe there are another dozen around there in other topics.
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scrapefour last edited by
@leocg Because that's literal standard practice. That is a fact that unfortunately can't be change. This is a basic core feature in 2026.
It's honestly astonishing that after hundreds of thousands of users public outcry for this one feature the official stance of the opera development team is. We don't use it so we don't need.
For me and others this is why we switched off. I truly hate to say it but that mindset will be the downfall of this product unfortunately. The unwillingness to listen to user feedback and implement features that will actual retain users ultimately is what will keep driving users to leave.
Opera is already seeing a decline in users and is losing market share. Does the team seriously not care?
Edge, chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi, shift, wave, even the perplexity AI browser has it.
Why is the opera team so vehemently against this feature? Opera is the last modern browser on the planet to not have this feature. What has made the opera take such a stance that it's willing to even forfeit it's market share??
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@scrapefour said:
It's honestly astonishing that after hundreds of thousands of users public outcry for this one feature the official stance of the opera development team is. We don't use it so we don't need.
Where? When? I don't even see a thousand people asking for it in Opera.
And Opera never said that they won't add vertical to Opera Air, but it won't happen now, maybe because Opera Air was not designed for that.
They also never said that they wouldn't put vertical tabs back on their main browser.
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scrapefour last edited by
@leocg Just look around. This is being discussed all over.
Based off your response and Mlipka vertical tabs isn't coming if at all.
Still odd to me that Air was designed missing core functionality.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@scrapefour said:
Opera is already seeing a decline in users and is losing market share. Does the team seriously not care?
Opera's market share always had its ups and downs. There's no way to say that an eventual decline is exclusively because of vertical tabs.
Interesting article, thanks.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@scrapefour I'm just an user, so what I say or not doesn't matter on Opera's decision about getting back vertical tabs after 15, 20 years or not.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@scrapefour Vertical tabs is not a core feature. It would be interesting to have vertical tabs? Yes, but it's far from being a core feature.
It seems to me that vertical tabs are a pet feature for some users, maybe, I guess, those that can't close tabs and always have hundreds of them opened.
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scrapefour last edited by scrapefour
@leocg Vertical tabs is a core feature. This has been widely agreed upon by web developers and had been implemented into all web browsers.
Regardless of how you feel you cannot change the fact that vertical tabs has been deemed an essential and core feature of a browser.
Closing tabs has nothing to do with vertical tabs. It's about readability and accessibility but opera has made its stance clear that's those things don't matter
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ThirteenthDisciple last edited by
I like nearly everything else about Opera besides the lack of being able to see my tabs vertically. I can see about 7 tabs horizontally easily, however, when researching a topic and I need 20+ tabs open, it would be much easier to look at the tabs like a list. I understand similar functionality exists, using opera://activity (or chrome://activity). I'm envisioning instead of a new tab with tabs listed for all the instances, just the tabs for the instance I'm in. Visually similar to the Easy Setup overlay in the sense I can click a button and see my tabs vertically on the right but is not there by default.
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realmaxmillion last edited by
I want to say this as someone who genuinely likes Opera: the lack of vertical tabs is one of the main reasons I have considered changing browsers.
Opera has always felt like one of the best browsers in personality, design, and overall user experience. The marketing is strong, the browser feels polished, and features like Tab Islands are some of the best tab-management ideas I have seen. That is why it is frustrating that vertical tabs are still missing.
For people who research, compare information, manage projects, consume content, or keep many tabs open, vertical tabs are not just a cosmetic preference. They change how the browser feels. Horizontal tabs become cramped quickly. You lose titles, context, and overview. With vertical tabs, the browser is easier to scan, organize, and use during long sessions.
This would fit Opera well because Opera already has a strong sidebar design language. A vertical tab system combined with Tab Islands could create one of the best tab-management experiences in any browser. Imagine clean grouping with Tab Islands, readable titles when expanded, icons when collapsed, and even a fully hidden minimal mode where the tab sidebar disappears entirely and comes back when hovering over the edge of the screen.
That hidden mode is something I think Opera could do beautifully. Not just icons sitting on the side, but a vertical tab interface that slides back in only when needed. I have found that style to be one of the best minimalistic browser modes ever. It gives you the full page when you want focus, but your tabs are still instantly available with a simple edge hover.
I understand that implementing this is not free work, but it feels like a high-value feature because it directly affects daily usage. People spend all day inside browsers now. Small improvements to tab management can affect whether users stay with a browser or leave it.
Some users already choose Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox setups, Arc, Zen, and others because vertical tabs make their workflow feel better. Some of those browsers are not as polished as Opera, but they still win users because this workflow matters. Personally, I would rather use Opera than switch to a lower quality browser, but vertical tabs are one of the features that makes me hesitate.
Opera has privacy concerns compared with privacy-focused browsers, and benchmarks are not always where Opera shines. But Opera’s strength is that it feels good to use. Vertical tabs would strengthen one of Opera’s biggest advantages: usability.
Opera has historically been linked with innovation. It used to feel like the browser that introduced ideas others later copied. Now that vertical tabs are becoming more common elsewhere, Opera being absent from that space makes it feel less ambitious than it could be.
Vertical tabs do not need to replace the current tab bar. They should simply be an option. Users who prefer horizontal tabs can keep them. Users who prefer vertical tabs can enable them. Users who want the most minimal setup could use a fully hidden hover-to-reveal mode.
Opera has the design talent to make vertical tabs better than the versions in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Firefox, or newer productivity browsers. If Opera combined vertical tabs with Tab Islands, it could attract power users, researchers, students, developers, professionals, and people leaving browsers like Arc on Windows because they want something more polished and stable.
I really hope Opera reconsiders this and makes vertical tabs an optional feature. Opera is very close to becoming the browser I would want to use permanently. It already has the design, personality, sidebar, Tab Islands, and a workflow that feels better than most browsers. But vertical tabs still feel like one of the main missing pieces.
Even if not everyone wants vertical tabs, the people who do care about them often care a lot. For many of us, they make browsing feel cleaner, more organized, more focused, and much better for research or heavy tab usage.
I also think this makes sense from a business standpoint. The users who benefit most from vertical tabs are often power users, students, researchers, developers, professionals, and people who spend long sessions in their browser every day. Those users are more likely to stay in the browser longer, build habits around it, and become loyal users.
Since Opera benefits from people actively using the browser, keeping more serious long-session users could help Opera commercially too. Vertical tabs could attract users who currently choose Edge, Vivaldi, Arc, Zen, Brave, or Firefox mainly because their tab workflow feels better. Giving those users a reason to switch or stay could be a real advantage.
So this is not only a quality-of-life feature. It could help Opera retain and attract the users who use browsers the most. Please consider adding vertical tabs as an option. Combined with Tab Islands, Opera could offer one of the strongest tab-management systems in any browser.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@realmaxmillion Vertical tabs are already available for testing in Opera One Developer.