Tame Firefox Tab Chaos With Vertical Tabs and Groups
Forty tabs, no titles left, and the one you need is somewhere in the middle: Firefox has built-in tools that clean this up without a single add-on.
David FischerIt starts innocently: a recipe, two shopping comparisons, a work document, a video for later. An hour later the tab bar has shrunk to a row of tiny icons, your laptop fan is spinning and you've opened the same page three times. If that's your Firefox, you're not alone, and the fix is already on board. Vertical tabs, tab groups and tab unloading turn the mess into a tidy workspace. Here's how to set them up step by step.
Step 1: Move your tabs to the side
On a wide screen, a vertical tab list shows full page titles instead of tiny favicons, and it has room for dozens of tabs without squeezing them.
- Right-click an empty spot on the toolbar or the tab strip.
- Select Turn on Vertical Tabs.
Your tabs now sit in the sidebar on the left. To collapse the list into a slim column of icons and expand it again, click the sidebar button in the toolbar or press Ctrl+Alt+Z.
Want the sidebar on the right instead? Right-click the sidebar button, choose Customize Sidebar and tick Move Sidebar to the right. In the same panel (also reachable via the gear icon at the bottom of the sidebar) you decide which tools, such as bookmarks or history, appear there. Two shortcuts open them directly: Ctrl+B for bookmarks and Ctrl+Shift+H for history.
Changed your mind? Right-click the toolbar or tab strip and switch vertical tabs off again, or untick Vertical tabs under Customize sidebar.
Step 2: Bundle related tabs into groups
Tab groups have been built into Firefox since version 137, and they work with both horizontal and vertical tabs. The fastest way to create one feels almost like a game:
- Drag a tab onto another tab.
- Wait until a highlighted area appears, then release.
- Type a name for the group and pick a color.
Prefer menus? Right-click a tab and select Add Tab to New Group. Once you have groups, right-click any tab, select Add Tab to Group and choose an existing group or New Group. You can also simply drag a tab into an expanded group.
Click a group's label to collapse it, and click again to expand it. Hovering over a collapsed label shows a list of the tabs inside without opening the group, which is perfect for a quick check.
What each option on the group label menu does.
Trick 3: Save a group and close it for later
This is the feature that makes tab groups so useful. Planning a trip, researching a new laptop, collecting sources for a school project? Park the whole topic without losing it.
- Right-click the group label.
- Choose Save and close group.
The tabs disappear from your tab bar and stop using memory. To bring them back, open List all tabs on the tab bar (with vertical tabs, use the toolbar icon). Saved groups are listed there, ready to reopen with one click.
The same right-click menu offers more options:
- New tab in group opens a fresh tab directly inside the group.
- Move group to new window gives a topic its own window, ideal for a second monitor.
- Ungroup tabs dissolves the group but keeps the tabs open.
- Delete group closes the group together with all its tabs, so double-check before you click it.
To rename a group or change its color, right-click the label and edit name and color.
Trick 4: Let Firefox suggest names and tabs
Since version 141, Firefox can help sort your tabs. In English-language versions of the browser, a local AI model looks at the titles and descriptions of your open tabs and proposes a group name plus matching tabs.
- Create a group with at least one tab.
- Right-click the group name to open the group panel.
- If Firefox finds similar tabs, click Suggest more of my tabs.
- Keep the suggested name and tabs that fit, and drop the rest.
The processing happens on your own device, so Firefox doesn't receive the specific addresses you visit. The first run can take a moment. If you'd rather not use it, you can switch the AI suggestions off in Settings > General under the tabs options.
Trick 5: Unload tabs to free memory instantly
Too many tabs can slow your whole PC down. Since Firefox 140 you can put tabs to sleep manually without closing them.
- Right-click a tab.
- Select Unload Tab.
The tab stays in your list, its icon turns gray, and it no longer uses background resources. Click it and the page reloads. To unload several at once, hold Ctrl and click the tabs you want, then right-click one of them and choose the option to unload the selected tabs.
When something goes wrong
- Group vanished? If you chose Save and close group, it's waiting under List all tabs. If you removed the last tab from a group, Firefox deletes the group automatically.
- Can't find Turn on Vertical Tabs? Make sure Firefox is up to date via Menu > Help > About Firefox. Vertical tabs and the new sidebar arrived with version 136.
- No AI suggestions? The feature is only available in English-language versions of Firefox, and it needs similar tabs open in the same window.
Our verdict
Vertical tabs plus tab groups are the biggest everyday upgrade Firefox has had in years, and they cost nothing. Heavy tab users, researchers, students and anyone working on a widescreen monitor gain the most. Do one thing today: turn on vertical tabs and save your biggest open topic as a group, then enjoy a tab bar that finally breathes again.
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About Author
David Fischer
I am a technology writer for UpdateStar, covering software, security, and privacy as well as research and innovation in information security. I worked as an editor for German computer magazines for more than a decade before starting to be a team member at UpdateStar.