[Review / Tip] How to Enable or Disable Vertical Tabs in Microsoft Edge

Microsoft has added a new feature called “Vertical Tabs” to Microsoft Edge 88 and later versions. The new Vertical Tabs feature is being rolled out in phases. That’s why some Microsoft Edge users have received the feature while some users are waiting for it. At the moment, Microsoft is doing A/B testing to activate and enable Vertical Tabs feature in Microsoft Edge installations. In coming days, Vertical Tabs feature will be available to all Microsoft Edge users.

Vertical Tabs feature moves the tab bar from top titlebar to left sidebar in Microsoft Edge web browser. That’s why this feature is also known as Side Tabs. Vertical Tabs feature will help managing tabs easily specially for wide screens.

Following screenshot shows Vertical Tabs feature live in action in Microsoft Edge web browser:

If you have already received Vertical Tabs feature in Microsoft Edge browser but you don’t like it and want to disable or remove it, we’ll tell you how to deactivate and disable Vertical Tabs feature in Microsoft Edge.

On the other hand, if you haven’t received this feature and you want to activate and enable Vertical Tabs feature right now in Microsoft Edge browser, we’ll tell you how to turn on the feature manually in Microsoft Edge.

How to Enable or Disable Vertical Tabs Feature in Microsoft Edge Browser:

Microsoft has provided a secret preference/flag to turn on/off Vertical Tabs feature in Microsoft Edge. Users can modify this preference/flag to enable or disable Vertical Tabs manually.

If you want to enable or disable Vertical Tabs feature in Microsoft Edge browser, following steps will help you:

1. Open Microsoft Edge web browser and type edge://flags/ in addressbar and press Enter. It’ll open the advanced configuration or experiments page.

2. Now type vertical in the “Search flags” box.

It’ll directly go to following option:

3. To enable Vertical Tabs feature, set the Vertical Tabs option to Enabled using the drop-down box.

To disable Vertical Tabs feature, set the Vertical Tabs option to Disabled using the drop-down box.

4. Microsoft Edge will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Restart” button to restart Microsoft Edge.

That’s it. You have successfully enabled/disabled Vertical Tabs feature in Microsoft Edge web browser.

[Review] How to Use Vertical Tabs Feature in Microsoft Edge Browser:

Now let’s talk about Vertical Tabs feature in details.

Once enabled, you’ll see Vertical Tabs button present at the extreme left-side of titlebar. You can click on the button and it’ll immediately activate and enable Vertical Tabs section. The tabs will move from top titlebar to left-sidebar. Alternatively, you can right-click on titlebar and select “Turn on vertical tabs” option.

The titlebar will start showing full webpage title as it used to show long time back in classic web browser versions when tab browsing didn’t exist. Good ol’ days.

At the moment, we can’t resize vertical tabs sidebar. I hope Microsoft will add this functionality in future versions of Microsoft Edge browser.

If you think the size of Vertical Tabs sidebar is large, as a workaround you can make it smaller by clicking on Left arrow icon (Collapse) present at the top-right side of Vertical Tabs sidebar. It’ll shrink/minimize the Vertical Tabs sidebar and only icons will appear without text as shown in following screenshot:

When you’ll hover mouse cursor over tabs, full Vertical Tabs sidebar will appear as a fly-out.

To restore full Vertical Tabs sidebar, again click on Pin icon present at the top-right side of Vertical Tabs sidebar. It’ll restore full size sidebar.

To remove Vertical Tabs sidebar and restore top tab bar, either click on Vertical Tabs icon present at the top-left of Vertical Tabs sidebar or right-click on titlebar or inside Vertical Tabs sidebar and select “Turn off vertical tabs” option. It’ll restore tab bar at top.

All keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys) such as Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W, etc work fine in Vertical Tabs sidebar. You can also drag-n-drop tabs to re-arrange them easily.

PS: A similar feature was introduced long time back in Google Chrome web browser. At that time the feature was named “Side Tabs“. It was implemented in Chrome version 13 and we shared about it in following article:

How to Enable New “Side Tabs” Feature in Google Chrome? Show Tabs in Left Sidebar

Unfortunately, Chrome team decided to remove the feature from future versions of Chrome.

Also Check:

[Tip] Hide or Remove Title Bar in Vertical Tabs Mode in Microsoft Edge

[Tip] Disable or Remove Vertical Tabs Button from Toolbar in Microsoft Edge

[Tip] Enable Secret “Sleeping Tabs” Feature in Microsoft Edge Web Browser