When Edge has many tabs open, the horizontal tab bar can shrink titles until every tab is just a tiny icon. Vertical tabs move the tab list to the left side of the window so each page title has room to stay readable.
Does this affect you?
Use this for current Microsoft Edge versions on Windows or Mac when you regularly keep many tabs open and want an easier way to scan them.
Turn on vertical tabs
The layout changes immediately and keeps your existing tabs open.
- Look at the top-left corner of Edge, next to the first tab.
- Click the vertical tabs toggle, which looks like two vertical bars.
- Your tabs move into a sidebar on the left side of the window.
- Use the search box at the top of the sidebar to filter open tabs by title when you have many of them.
New tabs continue to appear in the sidebar until you turn vertical tabs off.
Collapse the sidebar or turn vertical tabs off
Use these controls when you need more page width.
- To shrink the sidebar to icons only, click the collapse arrow at the top of the vertical tabs pane. Hover over the sidebar when you need to see titles temporarily.
- To return to the normal horizontal tab bar, click the same vertical tabs button again from the top of the sidebar.
Your pages stay open. These controls only change where Edge displays the tab strip.
More control
Use the shortcut on Windows
Press Ctrl+Shift+, on Windows to switch vertical tabs on or off without using the mouse.
The setting applies broadly
After you enable vertical tabs, Edge uses that layout for new windows as well until you switch back. It is a browser layout preference, not just a one-window setting.
Combine vertical tabs with tab groups
Right-click a tab in the vertical sidebar and choose Add tab to new group to color-code related pages and collapse the group. The sidebar gives each grouped tab more room to show its title than the top tab bar does.
Sources
- Microsoft Support – Get started with vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge (2025)
- Microsoft Support – Manage tabs in Microsoft Edge (2025)
- Microsoft Edge Blog – Organize your tabs with vertical tabs (2025)