How to Manage Tabs in Firefox?

Like most of the internet users, you probably open multiple tabs at the same time when browsing. Tabs are very useful as they enable you to open and organize different websites or pages of the same website in single browser window. They keep your screen clean, making it easy to navigate through multiple sites. However, managing too many tabs can be tedious and stressful; you need to keep track of which tab contains what information, prevent closing the wrong tabs, as well as take care of memory usage among other things. This can take more time than your actual browsing. Fortunately, Firefox offers features that offload you the hectic task of managing bulky tabs. In this post, we will show you how to manage multiple tabs in Firefox browser.

1. Opening and Organizing Multiple Tabs

You can work on as many tabs as you would like all on the same window. To add a new tab in Firefox;

Click the plus “+” sign, next to the last tab or use the keyboard shortcut, “Ctrl + T.”
To close a tab, click the close “X” icon on the right side of the tab or right-click on the tab and select “Close tab” at the bottom of the context menu.

You can also close multiple tabs by right-clicking on a tab and select either:
- “Close other tabs” – to close all the other tabs but the current one.
- “Close Tabs to the Right” – to close all the tabs on the right side of the current one.
If you have accidentally closed a tab or you need to use a previous tab, you can use the “Undo Close Tab” option.

2. Navigating and Moving Tabs in Firefox

Firefox offers different ways of reorganizing the order of your tabs by moving the tabs to a specific position.

The simplest way to move a tab is to click, hold and drag the tab to your desired position.
Moreover, you can use keyboard shortcuts to do so:
- “Ctrl + Shift + Pg up” – move the current tab one position to left.
- “Ctrl + Shift + Pg Dn” – moves the tab one step to the right.
To switch from one tab to the other you can use the “Ctrl + Tab” keys in recently accessed order.

3. Pin and Bookmark Tabs for Later Use

Right click on a table and select “Pin tab” from the context menu items. This will place the tab on the left edge of the title bar where you can easily see and access them.

Another tool is the bookmark feature, which enables you to save your favorite tabs for later access.

Right-click the tab you want to bookmark and click the “Bookmark Tab” option.
You may add keywords and tags for easy management, and then click the “Save” button.

4. General Tabs Preferences and Settings

To access tabs settings, click the Firefox menu icon (three horizontal lines on the top-right corner of the browser window) and then select “Options”.

Under the “General” settings, you will find the “Tabs” section. Check/uncheck the checkboxes to enable/ disable the options.

Related: Firefox Quantum Vs Google Chrome.

5. Acting on Multiple Tabs

Although Firefox no longer supports the tab grouping features, you can select multiple tabs and perform a single action across the tabs.

To highlight multiple tabs, press and hold the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard, then click on the tabs you want to include in the selection.
You can now perform a number of actions on the tabs. Simply right click on one of the selected tabs to:
Reload the tabs at a go.
Bookmark.
Pin the tabs.
Send the tabs to another device and so on.

Related: How to manage tabs in Google Chrome and Edge?

6. Open Multiple Tabs When you Launch Firefox or Click Homepage

Another interesting feature in Firefox is the ability to set up multiple sites as your home page. To do so,

Go to the “Options” page and under “Home” expand the “Homepage and new windows” options.
Select “Custom URLs…” and type the URLs to your preferred sites separated by “|”.
Relaunch the browser to execute the changes. When you open the browser or click the home button, the sites you added will automatically load.

You can also restore tabs from your previous session when you start up the Firefox browser.

Under the “General” settings on the options page and check the box beside the “Restore previous session” option.

In Summary

Working with multiple tabs helps you to open multiple sites from the same browser window making it convenient to switch between different pages of various websites. However, if not well managed, tabs can negatively affect your productivity, as they can clutter your browser window making it disorganized and hard to find what you are interested in. Luckily, with Firefox browser, you have exposure to a wide range of features and functionality that makes tabs management a straightforward and easy task.

How to Manage Tabs in Firefox?