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Vertical tabs are here in Firefox (and how to switch back)

After my (Linux Mint bundled) Firefox was updated to version 133, I got the following information popping up at the next Firefox start:

Vertical tabs are here - notification showing up after Firefox update
Vertical tabs are here – notification showing up after Firefox update

Yeah, why not?

Browser tabs now vertical on the left

After selecting the "Try vertical tabs", the browser tabs are now shown on the left side in a new vertical panel.

Browser tabs are now shown in the vertical left side bar
Browser tabs are now shown in the vertical left side bar

This gives the user the choice whether to use the new vertical side bar and access the browser tabs there, or continue using the horizontal browser tabs, below the address (URL) bar.

But speaking of which… How can one switch back to horizontal tabs?

Switching back to use horizontal browser tabs

OK, so you've tried the vertical tabs, but that's not floating your boat? You can easily switch back to the classic horizontal browser tabs. If you know how… There are at least two ways to quickly switch back.

The more intuitive one is to use the settings icon at the bottom of the side bar. A click on the icon opens the "Customize sidebar" menu.

The tab settings appear in the customize sidebar menu.
The tab settings appear in the customize sidebar menu.

At the bottom of if you can see the "Tab settings". This defines whether to show the browser tabs vertically in the side bar or switch back to the classic horizontal tabs.

Another way is to use Firefox's "about:config" URL to access the setting variables of Firefox. By searching for "sidebar.vertical" you will find the setting "sidebar.verticalTabs". The value should be set to true, if you have enabled vertical tabs and set to false if you use the horizontal tabs.

The browser tab location can be changed in Firefox's about:config settings.
The browser tab location can be changed in Firefox's about:config settings.

A double-click on the value changes the value from true to false or vise versa. You should notice that the location of the browser tabs immediately changes, too.

Claudio Kuenzler
Claudio has been writing way over 1000 articles on his own blog since 2008 already. He is fascinated by technology, especially Open Source Software. As a Senior Systems Engineer he has seen and solved a lot of problems - and writes about them.

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