Close multiple search panes

I may be missing something really obvious, but this one has me stumped. I inadvertently opened multiple search panes at the same time … and now cannot figure how to close them.

I know I can drag one search pane onto another, and so reduce the number of panes, however I am now left with multiple search tabs on one pane, as per the image.

What I’m trying to do

I am trying to return the search pane to its generic state: just one search tab open. I have tried ‘right click’. I have closed all plugins. I have restarted Obsidian. I have gone for a walk. … Nothing seems to help.

What am I overlooking?

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I have this same problem, would really love to see a resolution to this issue.

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There have been similar threads recently about multiple file explorer panes. A solution I saw from @joethei was to close Obsidian, remove the workspace file that is in the .obsidian folder inside your vault, and then re-open Obsidian. Note that this will also reset any custom configuration you had with panes, but it sounds like getting rid of the extra search panes may be worth the frustration of having to set your panes up again.

Hi @scholarInTraining. Do you mean the .css file (I don’t have a file called workspace).

Tried removing the .css and no change.

No, I did not mean a CSS file. I don’t think it even had an extension on my system, just called workspace. Sorry.

I just tried doing this, but it didn’t work, I still have the extra search icon.

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For now I dragged the extra icon over to the right side pane, but there really must be some way to just get rid of it. No one has any ideas on this???

@scholarInTraining suggested a fix above. Is that what you tried? What did you try?

Close Obsidian and backup a copy first:

If you just go into your vault/.obsidian and delete “workspace” and “workspaces.json” it should reset the layout of your vault. You’d then have to rebuild your layout.

Or if you’re brave (close Obsidian and backup a copy first) you can try to edit the JSON and see if you can just delete the extra search panes.

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For now I just dragged the extra search icon over to the right hand pane to get it out of the way.
I’m not sure how I got the extra search icon to begin with but I’ve noticed that other people have the issue as well, there should be an easy way to get rid of the damn thing.

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I have stucked in same problem. Why do some panes that can be placed as pages have Close button, but the others not?

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SOLVED how to close multiple search panes in left pane.
After trying everything suggested, with no success, I gave up on this one.
And then found a solution purely by accident.

Go to ‘Core Plugins’ and disable ‘Search (search for a keyword in all notes)’
Doing so removes the search functionality from the left pane

You can immediately enable Search to restore to a single search tab.

All is now good with the world again

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