[Tip] How to Disable Tab Previews and Tab Menu on Ctrl+Tab Switching in Opera

If you use Opera web browser, this tutorial will be useful for you. In today’s tutorial, I’m going to talk about the most irritating and most annoying feature present in Opera which is tab previews and Tab Menu.

Long time back Opera team introduced Tab Menu feature in Opera which shows a list of all opened tabs along with their previews when you cycle through tabs using Ctrl+Tab keyboard shortcut.

Actually in all web browsers, we can cycle forward and backward through all running tabs using Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab hotkeys respectively. These hotkeys come very handy when we have opened multiple tabs in our web browser.

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UPDATE: In newer versions of Opera browser, a new visual tab cycler appears upon pressing Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab hotkeys.

Opera_Popup_Visual_Tab_Cycler.png

Fortunately, you can disable the new UI and restore classic tab switcher UI which we are going to talk about in this tutorial. Following guide will help you in restoring classic tab switcher UI in Opera browser:

[Tip] Disable New “Ctrl+Tab” Visual Tab Cycler and Restore Classic Tab Switcher Menu in Opera

After following the above mentioned guide, you can perform the steps given below to get rid of thumbnail previews and tab menu in classic tab switcher.

In Opera, when we press Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+Shift+Tab hotkey quickly to navigate between tabs, the browser doesn’t switch to next or previous tab. Instead it launches the Tab Menu and shows a list of all running tabs. It also shows previews of selected tabs. It becomes very annoying when we just want to switch between tabs and don’t want to see their previews.

Tab_Previews_Tab_Menu_Ctrl_Tab_Switching_Opera.gif

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In older versions of Opera, there was an option given in its Settings page to enable/disable Tab Menu feature but in newer versions the option has been removed and now there is no way to remove Tab Menu feature.

Although there is an option given in Opera Settings page to show/hide tab previews but it doesn’t work at least for me. I have no idea why the option even exists there. It doesn’t work at all.

Show_Hide_Tab_Previews_Opera.png

I also checked Opera://flags page to find some options related to Tab Menu or tab preview but couldn’t find any option. In older versions of Opera there was an option “Tab menu with recent tabs” present in Opera flags page to turn on/off (toggle) Tab Menu but unfortunately it also no longer exists in newer versions.

Finally I was able to disable tab previews and Tab Menu appearing on Ctrl+Tab switching using the keyboard shortcut remap feature present in Opera. Actually in Opera the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab keyboard shortcuts are assigned to cycle between tabs instead of switch between tabs. That’s why Opera shows tab previews and Tab Menu. We can remap these shortcuts to force Opera to just switch between tabs without showing tab previews and Tab Menu.

If you also want to disable the annoying tab preview and Tab Menu feature in Opera web browser, following steps will help you:

1. Open Opera web browser and click on Menu -> Settings option. Alternatively, you can direct open Settings page using Alt+P keyboard shortcut.

2. Now click on Browser section present in left sidebar and in right-side pane scroll down a little to find “Shortcuts” section.

3. Click on “Configure shortcuts” button.

4. It’ll open keyboard shortcuts window. Now scroll down and you’ll see following 2 options:

  • Switch left through tabs
  • Switch right through tabs

PS: Please remember these 2 options are present twice in the list. If you find these 2 options greyed out i.e. disabled, you are in wrong section. Don’t look for the options present in “Advanced shortcuts” section. Scroll up a little and you’ll see both the options again in “Basic shortcuts” section and this time the options would be customizable.

Switch_Left_Right_Through_Tabs_Hotkeys_Opera.png

5. The first option “Switch left through tabs” is assigned “Ctrl+PageUp” hotkey and the second option “Switch right through tabs” is assigned “Ctrl+PageDown” hotkey.

Now we need to change the default hotkeys. Hover mouse cursor over “Switch left through tabs” option and click on “Type a shortcut” button. Now press Ctrl+Shift+Tab keys together on your keyboard.

Opera will show you following message:

Conflict detected for Ctrl+Shift+Tab

This shortcut is already assigned to “Basic shortcuts | Cycle backward through tabs”. Do you want to replace the current assignment?

Click on “Yes, replace” button.

Change_Switch_Left_Right_Through_Tabs_Hotkeys_Opera.png

Now hover mouse cursor over “Switch right through tabs” option and click on “Type a shortcut” button. Now press Ctrl+Tab keys together on your keyboard. You’ll receive similar message again:

Conflict detected for Ctrl+Tab

This shortcut is already assigned to “Basic shortcuts | Cycle forward through tabs”. Do you want to replace the current assignment?

Again click on “Yes, replace” button.

6. That’s it. Click on OK button and now you can use Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab hotkeys to switch between tabs without getting tab previews and Tab Menu any more.

Also Check:

[Firefox Tip] Disable Ctrl+Tab Thumbnail Previews and Cycle Through Recently Used Tabs

Published in: Opera

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. On MacOS at least, you can use CTRL+TILDE to cycle tabs without the preview. It’s astonishing how many things, shortcuts etc., in Opera are undocumented.

  2. to have the same change tabs thing in opera and chrome you have to enable “advance shortcut” in the setting of opera adn then find the right shortcut and change to “CTRL+TAB”

  3. How do I give you Askvg gold? Because this post has completely freed me of this aggravation. Thank you.

  4. thanks for this tutorial, I’m new to opera and I found it super helpful. I was running into the problem of my mouse cursor accidentally hovering over the popup tab menu and messing up my ability to cycle through the tabs. this seems to have resolved the tab / hotkey / cycling functionality. really appreciate it.

  5. Amazing! I was a bit frustrated and I really liked opera except for this. Now I’m sticking with opera instead of chrome. Thanks a lot!

  6. I almost give up on Opera because of this ugly switching “feature”. Sorry for the engineers but you guys should’ve said no to this feature request. It’s just toooooo ugly.

  7. A wonderful solution still in June 2021 (in a just-installed v 77.0). Thanks so much!

    And for folks who have long lamented the fact that ctrl-9 did not go to the last tab like in other browsers, it’s configurability is finally coming!

    forums.opera.com/topic/32716/ctrl-0-zero-ctrl-9-to-send-to-the-last-tab/14?_=1623450930484&lang=en-US

  8. Wow, thanks!
    This issue was a real pain. The solution now appeared to be to simple to find out by myself (shame). Great effort!

  9. Thank you. This allowed me to use Opera. Otherwise it would have had to go back to Chrome again.
    These should be “templates” to be chosen on install.

  10. Thank you!! Been looking to restore this for a long time, avoiding the effort and extra latency to release keys 🙇‍♀️

  11. Thank you… I’ve landed here from google (twice in the past year) and this is exactly the solution I was looking for!

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