Tabs would be amazing. Please… It would make a world of difference.
On July 14 on the Obsidian roadmap, a card for Tabs was created. This is currently the only item in Working on. As a side note, also on that day there were cards for a Corkboard/Whiteboard plugin and a Refreshed default theme by @kepano added to Short-term. These are exciting times!
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It would be extremely convenient to be able to open panes in tabs, and switch between the tabs using hotkeys, like you can in the browsers or in VSCode.
I know that there are a couple of community plugins for that (Obsidian Tabs and Cycle through Panes), but their behavior is a bit inconvenient and pretty counterintuitive.
VSCode also has “Open Editors” panel - a sidebar widget that contains a list of all the open files (for cases when the open tabs can’t fit on the screen). It is also extremely useful.
I really wish this functionality was the part of the core Obsidian app, it would make everything so much more convenient!
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I would also really appreciate this feature! I would also embrace sidebar tabs, possibly as an “Open notes” space in the sidebar. The Arc web browser also has a good implementation of sidebar tabs that accommodate “split” views of different webpages at once.
Obsidian is NOT a Web Browser, Word Processor or Database. What it IS is a PLAIN TEXT application that uses Markdown and works on multiple operating systems (Which are all different) like Windows, Linux (various flavors) MacOS, Android (Various flavors), iOS etc
You mean… Like Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom, Em Editor, UltraEdit, Notepad ++, Zettlr, FocusWriter, Kate Editor, Geany, Gedit, CudaText…
Tabs exist in all of this softwares because they are convenient and they proved it.
The developers ARE Amazing.
Yes, but off-topic here. Every software can be improved.
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Don’t think most of these work on Android or iOS
- Obsidian is not an phone only application, and I didn’t read anywhere that we were talking about the phone implementation side only of the app. The original post was talking about Obisidian in general.
- There is some tabs implemented on smartphone app as well. Firefox and Chrome at least, some note apps allow to work on multiple docs at the same time thanks to a small burger menu on the left corner of the screen.
No, but all the OSs were listed including mobile and the many programs you listed don’t have mobile versions, so they weren’t equivalent.
Yes, some mobile markdown editors do have tabs (with no need for a burger). But then they don’t have desktop versions.
Obsidian’s approach to mobile has been maximalist rather than the typical minimalist and I’d expect that they’d want tabs to be on mobile when they’re added to desktop.
As much fun as it may be to tell the numerous users who have posted in this thread (or liked the feature request) that their needs are invalid, I fear that this discussion is a little bit pointless:
According to the Obsidian Roadmap, tabs are currently being worked on, so the feature will likely be released in the not-too-distant future.
I for one am extremely exited about this, because the only 3rd-party tab plugin that worked ok for me is the Sliding Panes plugin, but even that started to have issues with recent versions of Obsidian. Plus, a basic feature such as tabs or separate note windows should really be part of the core app and not be bolted-on using a 3rd-party plugin. That way, it’s also much easier to optimize for things like memory usage.
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Good day,
You recently added a Tabs task to your roadmap (in the Working on column).
I don’t know how you will implement this functionality, but I want to offer my version.
My version
I have 946 notes in my knowledge base and there are times when I simultaneously work on/open many notes.
Often these notes are related to different topics and I would like to group them under different tabs so that everything is not mixed up on one screen.
Like this:
That is, these tabs are like separate planes between which it is convenient to switch to different open groups of notes. These tabs will allow you to efficiently work with many notes simultaneously, taking Obsidian to a new level.
Now Obsidian can offer:
- Moving a note to a new window – inconvenient
- Open note in Hover Editor – also inconvenient
I hope my idea will inspire you and please don’t create another Obsidian Tabs plugin.
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Yes, your workflow is exactly like mine. Not just for notes… but also when I’m editing code with nvim in large repos.
I’m hoping Obsidian’s implementation follows this model. 
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As this was anticipated in the roadmap, Tabs are in the works for 0.16.x.
Bummers. The devs implemented “tabs per pane” instead of “panes per tab”. I was hoping for the later. Oh well… just having tabs available is good and I’m happy to see Obsidian’s development continue forward.
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Just FYI: Obsidian also offers Workspaces that allow you to switch between different sets of open files.
Of course. We all know about workspaces. They’re no good. Too long of a context switch.
As a software engineer, we’re used to having 10-20-30-etc files open at once. All files grouped by some context with a quick way to switch between contexts. This isn’t new.
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In my experience there’s a lot of people who have never tried using workspaces and/or don’t know about their existence. Personally, I find them to be quite useful specifically for “global” context switching between different “planes” of notes.
As a software engineer who has seen a lot of other software engineers work I have to disagree. There is quite a variety of ways people are used to do their work and a significant number of people don’t work the way you described.
Kinda offtopic but how do you replicate the workflow mentioned by Aleksandr in your IDE or editor of choice? Maybe I’m missing something, but VS Code and JetBrains IDEs also offer “tabs per pane” not “panes per tab”.
However you’re right, this isn’t new. I definitely should’ve read and searched the thread more closely before suggesting something that has already been mentioned. I appreciate your constructive criticism even if it overgeneralizes some things about groups of people
Yeah, we all have our ways.
I use vim tabs where each tab have their own set of panes/layouts. For me each tab might represent a different repo, a subproject in a repo, my obsidian notes(!) vault, or something else entirely. With simple keystrokes I can completely switch between these contexts.
It’s all good. I envision at some point Obsidian getting this feature as well. Maybe the best way to call it would be “workspace as a tab” and within each of these umbrella tabs is the existing panes w/ tabs as implemented today.
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How do I disable Tabs in 0.16? I do not like this feature nor the space it takes in the UI.
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you can’t (but third party plugins can be developed to facilitate different workflows).
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