We’re turning Vertical Tabs upside down in Opera

[HarisonJones]

HarisonJones last edited by

Hi Opera Team,

First off, I love Opera — as a power user, nothing else on the market comes close, and I can’t go back to other browsers. However, after testing the new Vertical Tabs, I wanted to share some feedback from the perspective of someone running 200–300 tabs across multiple Workspaces on a 43-inch monitor.

While Vertical Tabs sound great on paper, forced "either-or" mode feels unintuitive for heavy multi-tab workflows. I believe the true strength would be a Hybrid Mode that combines both horizontal and vertical tab spaces.

Here are the key pain points and suggested solutions:

1. The Core Issue: Finding Newly Opened Tabs
   When using Vertical Tabs with hundreds of tabs open, middle-clicking a link opens a new tab somewhere in the vertical list. I end up having to scroll and hunt to find where it landed. It breaks the active workflow.

2. Proposal: Hybrid Tab Layout
   Instead of locking users into only vertical or only horizontal tabs, allow us to mix both:

Horizontal Bar (Active Workspace): Keep currently active/working tabs and newly middle-clicked links on the traditional horizontal bar at the top for quick, immediate access.

Vertical Bar (Tab Islands & Storage): Use the vertical panel as a visual overview for inactive Tab Islands, grouped content, or tabs kept for reference across the workspace.

Auto-Archiving / Restructuring: Newly opened horizontal tabs could be manually dragged into a vertical Tab Island, or automatically sorted into their respective vertical island upon restarting the browser.

3. Flexible Pinning
   Give users the choice to pin tabs either in the vertical sidebar or on the traditional horizontal bar above the address bar.

4. Tab Target Size on Large Displays
   With hundreds of tabs, misclicking is a constant battle (even on a 43-inch screen). A hybrid approach—where the top bar handles current task tabs and the side panel holds organized islands—would make target areas much easier to click.

Summary:
Forcing a choice between pure horizontal or pure vertical feels like a missed opportunity. Giving users the freedom to customize which tabs/islands live horizontally and which stay in the vertical panel would make Opera even better.

Thanks for constantly pushing the browser forward!

[ultravio1et]

ultravio1et last edited by

im sure when the linux flatpak gets updated i'll be able to give this a go

[KotsuCoder]

KotsuCoder last edited by

Here's a crazy concept: Why don't you let us have new tabs appear on the bottom of the tab strip, while the actual new tab button remains on the top???

[tequilacat]

tequilacat last edited by

That's how I met the "New tab" button:) Always RMB-Down gesturing or shift-clicking on a bookmark

[mypointofview]

mypointofview last edited by

I need my vertical tabs on the right side, not left. Please make that an option (like in Vivaldi)

[elionel]

elionel last edited by

Please stop stretching the active tab, and also, when I'm scrolling through tabs—why not return to the second-to-last tab when I close the last one?

[maksicjovan]

maksicjovan last edited by

Would be nice if pinned tabs can be excluded from shortcut list!
For example, if you have 8 pined tabs first 8 shortcuts are always occupied, and you probably need to "jump" in between regular tabs that you just open.

[jrw]

jrw last edited by

i like the left handed tabs and the top active tabs ! im new to opera i like it keep the good work opera

[bidexg]

bidexg last edited by

I think one should have freedom of moving the vertical tab to left or right.

[angwm]

angwm last edited by

It would be amazing if we could have a keyboard shortcut such as ctrl B to collapse vertical tabs panel. I think this would be a very intuitive UX design move for developers.

[ztisott]

ztisott last edited by

I wish we have a way to hide the adress bar too to make it more minimalistic. And the sidebar+vertical tabs works weird together, especially if you use the hide option on the sidebar like i use