Safari Vertical Tabs?

[Ethosik]

Does the new Safari have Vertical Tabs? I have dropped every other browser that does not support vertical tabs. Brave, Edge, Arc, etc. I only use these for the pure vertical tabs.

Tab groups in Safari are not the same because you still have loads of tabs horizontally if you have loads of tabs in the tab group.

 

[Slartibart]

is this a question related specifically for the macOS 26 beta? Or in general? Safari provides this functionality via the side bar (at least in macOS 15, probably long before).
In the top you see the an indicator with the number of currently open tabs. <- that is ABOVE the tab groups. Click the triangle on the right to it to expand, then navigate vertically. 🙂

I do not run macOS26 beta, but it is there in iPadOS26 and functional…and as written in Safari 18.5 it is available… someone running the macOS beta might check 🙃 (?)

 

[StevenRCE0]

The Tab Group in sidebar does provide functionalities like vertical tabs, but the lame address bar still takes up space on the right––and OS 26's decision to remove the merged tabs makes this use case feel worse.

 

[Joseph C]

The Tab Group in sidebar does provide functionalities like vertical tabs, but the lame address bar still takes up space on the right––and OS 26's decision to remove the merged tabs makes this use case feel worse.

I really hate the new bulky Safari on macOS 26 in the betas so far.

I want the compact view back but have a feeling they're not going to do it.

If they let us hide the usual tab bar with the sidebar/vertical tabs open I'd switch to that instead.

 

[Ethosik]

is this a question related specifically for the macOS 26 beta? Or in general? Safari provides this functionality via the side bar (at least in macOS 15, probably long before).
In the top you see the an indicator with the number of currently open tabs. <- that is ABOVE the tab groups. Click the triangle on the right to it to expand, then navigate vertically. 🙂

I do not run macOS26 beta, but it is there in iPadOS26 and functional…and as written in Safari 18.5 it is available… someone running the macOS beta might check 🙃 (?)

This is precisely what I want to avoid. Give me vertical tabs but not horizontal tabs. I do not need to see them twice.

 

[fisherking]

This is precisely what I want to avoid. Give me vertical tabs but not horizontal tabs. I do not need to see them twice.

View attachment 2527787

seems a logical idea 👍 - have you reported this in feedback assistant?

 

[JulianL]

I'm a Windows user of over 30 years. After spending the last week watching a gazillion YouTube videos from people sharing their experiences of making the transition from Windows to MacOS, and some great MacOS instructional content from the likes of macmostvideo, I've now decided that I'm definitely going to make the switch and am picking at a few nagging details; vertical tabs is one of them.

I'm just wondering, 3 months on and presumably with at least one more beta releases since the last post on this thread, has there been any progress and/or response from Apple on this feature request which I assume at least someone has submitted to Apple? (I will submit my own request once I get a Mac if the feature isn't implemented by then but without a Mac to truly experience current behaviour I don't really feel entitled to submit such a request right now.)

Since I currently use Windows and prefer to install as little extra stuff as possible I use Edge as my main browser and in my opinion that implements vertical tabs really well. For MacOS to get to the same level the first thing it would need to do is, as discussed here, add an option to hide the horizontal tabs when the sidebar is open but there is one other thing that makes Edge's vertical tabs such a good experience for me and I'm wondering if this is another thing Safari doesn't currently offer or it is already in the current feature set?

The other feature I'm talking about is sidebar behaviour. Is displaying the sidebar in Safari an all-or-nothing operation, i.e. it's either not there at all or displayed as shown in the screenshots further up this thread, i.e. quite a wide bar with icons and text to the right of each icon?

In Edge there is the option to have a collapsed/compact sidebar visible which is just a vertical stack of icons, one for for each open tab or tab group, and if you hover over anything in the collapsed bar the bar temporarily expands to allow you to see the full text descriptions for everything on the bar and when you make your selection and move back to the main viewing pane the side bar collapses back to its collapsed state.

Can the left hand sidebar in MacOS Safari be set to a compact auto-expand-on-hover view or can it only be displayed in its full icon+text format as shown in these screenshots?

 

[Ethosik]

No response, as expected. I just have given up with Safari until it supports proper vertical tabs. Arc, Edge, Brave etc are what I use now.

 

[MacGizmo]

There is nothing in Safari that allows for vertical tabs within or outside of the official Sidebar. There's also little chance Apple will ever implement the feature. Apple's strategy is to keep their three primary platforms similar in look, feel, and functionality. While vertical tabs works great on MacOS, I don't see it working at all in iOS for iPad or iPhone.

There used to be an extension for Safari that would provide this feature many years ago, but Apple killed the ability to have extensions alter Safari in any meaningful way a long time ago. Now developers have to code full apps to add simple functionality to Safari, which costs them money and a host of other considerations that they didn't used to have.

For what it's worth, you could just run MS Edge on the Mac. It works great and offers the features you're looking for.

 

[Starfia]

No response, as expected. I just have given up with Safari until it supports proper vertical tabs. Arc, Edge, Brave etc are what I use now.

I think that's the right choice in your case. Unless I'm really forgetting something huge, Safari on Mac has never supported vertical tabs in any sense that would constitute an alternative to horizontal tabs.

(As you might have gleaned, the introduction of Tahoe seems like a weird developmental moment for Safari on Mac; the initially-controversial but sometimes-beloved "compact" tab mode was just removed, and it's both adopting Liquid Glass controls – which supposedly exist to float transparently over content – within a bar that's almost non-transparent. I think a lot of us who love Safari are concerned, but giving it a month or two to blink and rediscover its bearings a little.)