
Adding to this. Here is your answer. Vertical tabs is not coming and you should stop caring about it.
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Adding to this. Here is your answer. Vertical tabs is not coming and you should stop caring about it.
@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
@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.
@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??
@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.
@mixchild This is the kind of thing that's going to hurt opera in the long run.
I've been a long time opera user and have now fully ditched opera for edge and chrome. I'm not a fan of chrome but they listen and are giving us the literally basic features that we requested.
Opera is the only modern browser left that does not have vertical tabs. I know there's a lot of buzz about this on reddit and users are leaving opera in troves. I hope they figure this out soon and fix this before there's no one left
@parasite666 agree 100%. Unfortunately since opera doesn't want to adopt basic features that other browsers have I completely have moved off opera. Opera air was my favorite browser so far but the absence of basic things like vertical tabs makes it unusable. So I completely moved away from opera for the time.
@Mlipka I don't see it as being too difficult to implement considering opera already has this built out in previous versions and removed it.
Also it seems like a very highly requested feature as this thread appears to be blowing up.
The dark mode is great! Once I saw it had it I redownloaded Air. Dark mode works well for the most part but just curious if more enhancements will be coming later on to fix things like the settings menus etc to match the dark mode theme?
@leocg So for work or just daily use you only use a single tab at a time? When your done you just close the tab and re sign in everytime?
For my use case I'm a sysadmin so it's not uncommon to have 20 - 30 portals open and going in and out of. Rmm tools, network management, inventory systems, device management systems and list goes on. As an admin I work on requests as they come in so I never know what portal I'll need till I physically get the request. All these are 2fa as well. Once you close the tab you have to 2fa back in. I couldn't imagine having to sign back in 100+ times a day using my password and 2fa code whereas I could just leave the tab open and refer back to it when needed.
@leocg We were not forced to write lists vertically because of notebooks. It was more of common-sense thing that lists are better organized by line.
Here is sample of vertical tabs. Much cleaner and better than horizontal and it saves space because the menu collapses. The horizontal tabs are extremely messy and not really good for a workflow. There is a reason that opera is the only mainstream browser in existence today that lacks this feature. 99% of the market saw a need for this and adapted. I really hope that opera does the same. To label a product as a "productivity browser" but lack the most basic productivity features is misleading. Its like buying a car without tires. Like most of here have expressed we will likely continue to use other products until opera catches up to everyone else.
I'm not sure if the opera team monitors reddit at all but not having this feature is one of the top reasons why people are leaving opera as well. Even in the forums I found threads going back as far as 2014 asking for this feature.
Yes, having a large number of tabs is necessary. For my work everything I do is web based and as a sysadmin im in no less than 30 + different portals per day. I couldn't imagine having to close out of the tab every time I completed an action then having to reopen and sign back in with 2fa every time I needed to complete something.
https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1itdjxt/whats_the_hype_around_vertical_tabs/

@leocg the need for vertical tabs is there. I don't think it's a fair statement to say that every mainstream browser in the market today implemented this useless feature. There is a very clear need for it. To say that "well it wasn't popular 20 years ago" completely ignores the changing landscape of technology and how fast needs arise.
Opera air is supposed to be a productivity browser designed to help focus. Vertical tabs help tremendously with the workflow. Being able to in a list form every tab I have open and jump too it is massive. Also being able to group tabs by like content is also a game changer.
Here's a great example. Why do we write lists vertically and not horizontally? Tabs are nothing more than a list of all the open items. Sure if you not doing much then a horizontal list works but once you have more than a few things it makes sense to list it out vertically.
I even see this in my org. I'm an admin and manage thousands of users. Browsers settings are completely open for end users customize as they please. Most users have either moved to edge or chrome and use vertical tabs.
Also I've seen people using vertical tabs on chrome not sure if it's an extension or built in as I'm not a chrome user. Edge and opera for me but mostly edge since opera lacks these features
@mattbizio 100% agree. Edge quickly went to the top of my list for browsers. It's so productivity focused and it keeps getting better with each update.
I switched off opera for edge but once I saw opera air I was sure it would be the browser that brings me back but the lack of vertical tabs and organization and the blinding flashbang effect everytime I use it makes it hard to switch too
@leocg what this fails to take into account is that 20 years ago web applications were not a thing. Most users today have next to no software installed anymore. 30+ tabs in todays world is extremely common. Necessity drives innovation. We have reached a point where we need ways to organize. Brave, edge, zen, chrome, Firefox all have this.
@Mlipka Just chiming in here as well. I would like to see vertical tabs as well. This is the main reason why I use edge. When using 20 - 30+ tabs especially for work, it makes tab management that much better also. Self organizing tabs would be very nice too. Edge has the feature where you can hit organize tabs and it creates subsections in the list. I do not use work spaces because I prefer a clear list of all my tabs.
@leocg Appears that the GPU process and browser itself are roughly 1gb. Boosts and takes a break features are 500mb and everything else like zen media, aria, background workers etc are around 50 - 70mb each.
Seems like the browser is just going to be very heavy on resource usage. Hope to see improvements in the future. Will keep checking back when updates occur
@leocg Task Manager does not show what processes are running on opera just that it is opera air. The high ram usage looks like its also affecting the take a break and Boosts features. When using opera air. Enabling any of mindful features causes stuttering scrolling and loading issues.
Since I work remotely and pretty much everything I do is web based, Opera Air just cannot handle the tabs and workload. Its just too RAM intensive.
Will have to switch back to edge for the time being till this is fixed. Ashamed because the take a break and boosts features were nice for work.
@leocg The only thing thats concerning is this is a fresh install with only 2 extensions opened. it should not have that many running processes? Is that the background mindfulness stuff running?
When I expand and look at the processes they are all just labeled opera air
@leocg Are you sure for opera air? On normal opera its not that high. No tabs open using close to 2gb of ram is alot.
Why is opera air so inefficient compared standard opera, opera gx and edge?

I'm having an issue on a new laptop that I just purchased. Laptop is the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura w/ Ultra core i7 256v, 16gb ram.
Im seeing very high Ram usage on Opera Air compared to Edge. I have included a side by side screenshot for comparison. Both have the same extensions installed and have no tabs open. As you can see from the task Manager Opera is using about 1.6gb of ram at idle where edge only uses around 500mb.
This is a clean install of opera with my bookmarks synced from edge.