Tabbed browsing lets you open several web pages within a single Firefox window, each displaying in its own tab.

Table Of Contents

• Creating and Loading Tabs
• Moving Tabs Within a Window
• Closing and Restoring Tabs
• Customizing Tabbed Browsing
• Tips and Tricks

Creating and Loading Tabs

To open a new tab, you can:

• Hold down the CtrlCmd key and press T.
• At the top of the Firefox windowOn the menu bar, click the File menu and select New Tab
• Double-click an empty space in the Tab Bar.

To load a link in a tab, you can do one of the following:

• Middle-click the link. (If you have a mouse wheel, clicking the wheel is equivalent to middle-clicking.)
• Drag the link and drop it on an empty space in the Tab Bar. (If only one web page is open, the Tab Bar may be hidden. See Customizing Tabbed Browsing for information on how to change this.)
• Drag and drop the link onto a tab to open the link in that tab.
• Right-clickHold down the Ctrl key while you click on the link, and choose Open Link in New Tab from the context menu.

To open a URL in the Location Bar in a new tab, type the URL, hold down the AltOpt key and press EnterReturn.

Moving Tabs Within a Window

Tabs are displayed in the order you open them, which may not always be what you want. To move a tab to a different location within a Firefox window, simply drag it there using your mouse. While you are dragging the tab, Firefox displays a small indicator to show where the tab will be moved. Alternately, you can use keyboard shortcuts to move tabs within a window if desired.

Closing and Restoring Tabs

To close the current tab, you can either:

• Hold down the CtrlCmd key and press W
• Click the Close Tab button
  
  
  
  
• Middle-click the tab
• At the top of the Firefox windowOn the menu bar, click the File menu and select Close Tab.

To close all tabs other than the current one, right-clickhold down the Ctrl key while you click, on the tab and choose Close Other Tabs.

Firefox windows keep a list of tabs you closed recently. You can restore any tab by opening the History menu, moving down to the Recently Closed Tabs sub-menu, and selecting the tab you want to re-open. You can restore all tabs by selecting Open All in Tabs in the same menu. Press CtrlCmd+Shift+T to open them one by one in reverse order.

Customizing Tabbed Browsing

To change tabbed browsing optionspreferences open the ToolsFirefoxEdit menu and select Options...Preferences..., then select the Tabs panel.

Tips and Tricks

Bookmarks and Tabbed Browsing: To bookmark a set of tabs:

1. Hold down the CtrlCmd and Shift keys and press D or clickClick on the Bookmarks menu and select Bookmark All Tabs to add all the tabs in the current window to a new bookmark folder.
   
   
   
   
2. To open bookmarks in tabs, open a bookmark folder menu and choose Open in Tabs. You can also middle-click on the folder to open its contents in tabs. The bookmarks will open in existing tabs, not new ones.
   
   
   
   

Home Page as Tabs: Instead of using only one web page as your homepage, you can make a set of tabs your home page. Select your favorite web sites and open them in tabs in a single window. Open the ToolsFirefoxEdit menu and select Options...Preferences..., then open the Main panel. Under Startup, press the Use Current Pages button. Now when you press the Home button, your favorite web sites will load with just a click.

Adding a New Tab Toolbar Button: You can add a New Tab button on the toolbar to easily open new tabs by customizing your toolbars.

Keyboard shortcuts: Firefox has an extensive set of shortcuts related to tabbed browsing; see the full list in Keyboard Shortcuts.