Without a doubt, one area where Vivaldi has you covered is tab management. We know how easy it is to get lost in your tabs while trying to get things done, so we’re always on the lookout for modern, built-in features to help you view, manage, and navigate between tabs easily.
Our latest addition has arrived with Vivaldi 4.1: Accordion Tabs 🎶, part of our Tab Stack family.
Read on for more about Tab Stacks and new Accordion Tabs, as well as an updated overview of select features from our extensive Tab Management collection.
Tab Stacks – featuring new Accordion Tabs
Vivaldi’s OG tab stack view, Compact, takes up no more space than a single tab. This keeps the browser window tidy and is an efficient, streamlined way to quickly access a large number of tabs.
While Compact Tab Stacks are still a great choice for those of you who wish to maximize screen space, Vivaldi’s other two tab stack varieties provide you more ways to avoid tab overload.
Our brand-new Accordion Tabs allow you to expand and collapse a tab stack horizontally with a click. Typically, you would use Accordion Tabs to toggle between showing and hiding the content associated with them. This works great for revealing or hiding information in a limited amount of space. 🙌
Normally, Inactive accordions are compressed when you view other tabs. If you click an accordion, it expands to the right, instead of expanding down into Two-level stacks. When you click away from the accordion group, it will close again. If you want the accordion to stay expanded, double-click it when opening. Then, to close, use the arrow to close the accordion manually or double-click a tab in it to make it auto-close.
You can enable the Accordion Tabs feature in Settings →Tabs. If you prefer your accordions to stay open, you can use the arrow. For full control, you can turn off Auto-Expand in the settings.
For more on Accordion Tabs, check out this video:👇
Tile tabs
The ability to tile tabs – or create a split-screen view of several websites – is one of the most loved features of the Vivaldi browser. By tiling your tabs, you won’t have to switch tabs every few seconds – saving you time ⏱ and keeping you up to date.
This feature can be useful if, for instance, you need to keep all your reference material for a research article open, while you write. It also comes in handy if you are keeping track of multiple sporting events. 📖
You can “tile” any number of tabs. Just select the tabs you want to view and choose “Tile Tabs” from the context menu. You can select a tile layout via the Status Bar at the bottom-right of the browser window. You can also resize the tiles, so each one shows what you need.
View and manage tabs in Window Panel
If you prefer a tree-style view of your open tabs, just open the Window Panel. Click on the window icon in the Panel, and you will have a tree-style view of all your open tabs on one side of your browser window.
From the Window Panel, you can drag tabs to change the order, create tab stacks or even tile tab stacks to view them side by side. Just right-click the Tab Stack and select “Tile from the drop-down menu”.
Save sessions
If you always end up with a zillion tabs open no matter what you do, try saving your tabs as a session.
Research any topic, with as many tabs as you need; then save a selection of opened tabs (or all of them) as a session to revisit later. For example, you can save a session with your research on travel destinations ⛱, now places are opening up again.
To create a session, use Ctrl or Shift to make a selection, then right-click on one of the selected tabs to open the context menu, and select “Save Selected Tabs as Session”.
You can also start typing “Save Selected Tabs as Session” in Quick Commands.
To open a saved session, just click on File > Open Saved Session or start typing “Open Saved Sessions” in Quick Commands.
Place tabs in Web Panels
Vivaldi offers Web Panels in a slide-out sidebar, giving you extra space for your favorite websites and tools. By default, it contains Bookmarks, Downloads, Notes, History, and Window Panel.
But the real fun comes from adding custom Panels. And you can add any website!
Maybe you are using a mortgage calculator, or a stock photostream, or a messenger app – add them as Web Panels, to unclutter the Tab Bar and keep them at hand.
To add any page, right-click anywhere on the page and choose “Add Page to Web Panel” from the context menu. Or, you can click the “+” icon in the sidebar and enter the web address.
The Panel uses mobile website view by default. But some sites work better in their desktop version. You can quickly toggle between desktop and mobile versions by using the context menu. 💻 📱
Jump to the previous tab by clicking the current tab
You can save a lot of time by jumping to the previously opened tab with one click. ⌛
To enable this option go to Settings > Tabs > Tab Features > Tab Cycling > Minimize Active Tab.
Once checked, clicking on the active tab will take you to the previously opened tab.
Navigate quickly, your way
When it comes to tab switching, you aren’t limited to clicking a tab:
Quick Commands
Quick Commands are absolutely essential for many of our users.
Open Quick Commands using F2 on Windows and Linux, and ⌘E on a Mac.
This lists all the open tabs in the current window. If you have a large number of tabs, you will want to filter down the list. Start typing the page title or the domain, and the list gets shorter. Select the tab you want to switch to. ✨
Keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are pre-set in Vivaldi for tab-related commands, for instance, to move and select individual tabs. You’ll find these under Settings > Keyboard > Tab.
In addition, you can set any amount of custom keyboard shortcuts. ⌨
To add or edit shortcuts, go to Settings > Keyboard. To delete a keyboard shortcut, hover the mouse cursor over the shortcut and click the “Clear Shortcut” button to the right of the input field. To edit a shortcut, place the cursor in the input field and enter the preferred key sequence.
To reset the default keyboard shortcut, hover over the shortcut and click on the reload button to restore the default shortcut.
If you forget a shortcut, go to the Cheat Sheet in Help > Keyboard Cheat Sheet or find it with Quick Commands.
Mouse Gestures
Mouse Gestures let you speed up navigation and perform useful actions with quick movements of the mouse. You can edit existing gestures and add your own to match your browsing style.
To enable gestures go to Settings > Mouse and tick the Allow Gestures box.
To view the default gestures, go to Settings > Mouse > Gesture Mapping.
To perform your own gesture, click and hold the right mouse button (or press and hold the ALT key). Move the pointer to perform an action. You can also perform gestures using other input devices, such as trackpads or touchpads.
Tab Cycling
Tab Cycling is useful if you keep a lot of tabs open and you want to speed up navigating between them. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Tab to cycle through your open tabs.
To enable Tab Cycling, go to Settings > Tabs > Tab Features > Tab Cycling. Here, you can choose between “Cycle in recently used order” and “Cycle in tab order”.
You can also choose how to display your tabs in the tab cycler. They can appear as thumbnails (the horizontal cycler) or as a list of titles (the vertical cycler).
View tab thumbnails
Another way to stay on top of your tabs is to use tab thumbnails.
To see tab thumbnails for each tab in your Tabs Bar, enable the Tab Thumbnails option under Tab Display.
To show or hide the thumbnails, double-click on the line between the Tab and Address Bar or drag down or up from the same line.
Quickly recover tabs
Close a tab – or even a window – accidentally? As your life flashes in front of your eyes, don’t worry – in Vivaldi, you can recover accidentally closed tabs and windows quickly and easily. Just click the trash icon at the very end of your Tab Bar to see the last 100 closed tabs and select the site you need. This feature can be a lifesaver. 🎉
Mute tab audio
Imagine you are browsing the web at home, at work, or in a public space and trying to be quiet. But suddenly loud audio starts blasting from an open tab, auto-playing some video.
In Vivaldi, it’s easy to find the culprit. Just look for the speaker icon which shows up when a tab is playing audio, and click it to mute the tab 🔇.
To check out the other sound controls we’ve built into Vivaldi, go to the audio settings in Settings > Tabs > Tab Features > Tab Muting.
Manage tab notifications
Tab notifications let you know which of your tabs have new content waiting for you. Notifications will display on both pinned and regular tabs. An overlay icon on the tab will notify you of new emails or messages coming through social media websites.
To enable “Detect Page Title Notifications”, go to Settings > Tabs > Tab Display.
Hibernate tabs
Having hundreds of tabs open can be a drag on any machine. Save resources with Tab Hibernation.
This puts a tab (or a group of tabs) to sleep 💤 until you need it (them). Right-click on the active tab and select the option “Hibernate Background Tabs”. Whenever a tab gains focus, it will be loaded.
What are your favorite ways to keep your tab bar from getting out of control? Tried the new Accordion Tabs yet? Let us know in the comments! 👇
