Sync workspace tabs across windows

[PirateRacham]

What feature would you like to see?

When opening multiple windows of Zen-Browser, the workspaces are available in every window, but only contain tabs in the original window.

Would be nice if the tabs sync between windows as well.

Linked issue #911

[flifloo]

Same idea as in #1775

Personally I seek the same behavior as Vivaldi or the Simple Tab Groups extension

Native workspace is great, but I work with multiples windows and I really need to store some tabs aside across them
I don't want to lose a bunch of tabs when closing a single window

[everyx]

The Simple Tag Groups extension met all my needs for Workspace in Zen, but it was too unstable and kept losing tabs. I wanted to keep things stable while still using multiple windows in Zen.

[RichardShift]

Limitations:

* Will not be able to have multiple instances of the same workspace (which is completely fine)

Well, this might work fine for some users, but others would prefer - or even require - a way to synchronize workspaces seamlessly across multiple windows, while still ensuring that each tab is open in only one window at a time.

[Fxxxlei]

While I find the Pop-out approach interesting, it is still too limited for my purposes.
I do not want multiple instances of a workspace, I want multiple views into the same workspace.
I sometimes need to spontaneously view multiple tabs of the same workspace at the same time.

[SlickDomique]

I don't use workspaces at all now because they are separate on each window. Multiple windows of the browser serve as the workspaces for me now, like on firefox. I would love to use workspaces but having multiple sets of tabs on each monitor is not something I want to mentally track.

[Fxxxlei]

I would love to see something like this as well.

I'd prefer windows to be a view into a shared set of workspaces. Workspaces and tabsa thus wouldn't be owned by a specific window.
If I select a tab that is currently open in an other window, the other window should switch to a different tab and the current window would show the tab I selected.

The tab to show in the window I took the tab view from should be either:

1. the last tab viewed in that window not viewed in any other window,
2. or the tab viewed in the current window before the switch.

The latter option is probably more robust and useful, since the condition given in the first option may not match any open tab.
Furthermore, the second option would allow me to switch the views back by selecting the previous tab again.

An option (browser configuration) for the second window to switch back to the view that was taken from it once it is not viewed anymore, might be useful as well.

Following scenario for visualization (windows A-C, tabs 1-4, select tab 2, then 3, then 4 in Window A):
Option 2a:
A shows 1, then 2, then 3, then 4
B shows 2, then 1, then 1, then 1
C shows 3, then 3, then 2, then 2

Option 2b:
A shows 1, then 2, then 3, then 4
B shows 2, then 1, then 2, then 2
C shows 3, then 3, then 1, then 3

Option 2a is just a swap when necessary.
Option 2b seems more complex but less disruptive, since swaps are temporary.

[RichardShift]

For my suggestion regarding "selecting a tab already open in another Zen window", please read here .

[digiaust]

Just adding my voice. I think you are going to see a lot of users start to come over from Arc (They're hemorrhaging users atm) and having this feature where every browser window is just a window into your workspace. This is super useful for people with multiple screens.

[Fxxxlei]

Because I just saw how synced pinned tabs across windows was implemented, I wanted to make sure I am understood correctly.
Pinned tabs are currently cloned across window (a bit buggy, reset URL doesn't work in some windows).
What I want is not cloning across windows but sharing across windows. Opening a tab from a different window should move that tab to the current window, not open a new instance.

[RichardShift]

I believe moving open tabs between windows might clear information not "saved" in that tab, so I would suggest something else. For my suggestion, please read here .

[RichardShift]

Hi team,

I’d like to add to this discussion with a detailed use case and expanded feature suggestion. This synchronized tab view across windows would greatly enhance workflow fluidity, particularly for users who rely on multiple windows to manage tasks across different screens.

Proposed Feature: Optional Synchronized Tab Display Across Windows

An optional feature that enables synchronized tab views across all windows within the same workspace. This would allow all windows open within a workspace to display the full set of open tabs for that workspace, regardless of where the tabs were initially created.

Key Functionalities:

• Unified Tab View Across Windows: When multiple windows are open within the same workspace, each window would automatically display all tabs open in that workspace without the need to pin or duplicate tabs.
• Real-Time Tab Syncing: Any new tab opened in one window would immediately appear in all other windows displaying the same workspace.
• Seamless Workspace Switching: When switching a window to a different workspace, that window would display all tabs associated with the new workspace, no matter which window was initially used to manage those tabs.

Benefits:

• Enhanced Multitasking: This feature supports users who need immediate access to their workspace tabs across different screens and windows without manual duplication.
• Flexible Workflow: The option to enable or disable this synchronized view allows each user to customize their tab experience to their preference.
• Improved Efficiency: A synchronized tab view streamlines the process of managing multiple tabs across windows, especially beneficial for users who frequently toggle between topics and tasks.

Personal Need:

This feature is crucial for my work setup. I often jump between topics, requiring immediate access to related tabs on multiple screens across different windows. With Zen’s existing workspace and container functionalities, this feature would complete my setup, allowing me to work more efficiently without needing to manage tabs individually in each window.

Thank you for considering this addition — I believe it would make Zen an invaluable tool for multitaskers and power users. 🙏

[SaylorAdam]

I like this idea greatly. To up the game even further, we could have persistent pinned tabs in the synced workspaces. Having workspaces in containers and persistent between windows will make working on multiple projects and managing multiple clients/jobs far easier. It is the only thing holding me back from being able to use one browser at a time. Right now, I am stuck with Zen and Vivaldi for different workflow needs.

[Fxxxlei]

@SaylorAdam I don't understand what you are requesting.
We already have persistent pinned tabs (of course they should also be synced between windows), they are just bugged in the latest Alpha releases.
We also have "workspaces in containers". Either you use different profiles, or assign default containers to workspaces.
I'm not sure what your non-covered workflow is.

[OfflinePing]

I’d also love to see this feature implemented!

[jsblanco]

This would be amazing to implement. Id love to share my tabs between my windows like in Arc browser. I work with several windows and desktopr, and having unified tabs would be a godsend.

[mr-scrpt]

Really needed!

[sheepman4267]

I completely agree with this suggestion as well. I'm a long-time Vivaldi user, and this is my favorite thing from Vivaldi that I miss on Zen. On balance I like Zen better for lots of reasons, but this would really take it to the next level.

[TheGhostHybrid]

Absolutely agree. I am another Vivaldi user, and I have been loving Zen so far! Right now, if I want to move a workspace to another window, I have to open a new window, switch to the proper workspace, then drag the tabs over from the main window. It works, but is a fair bit clunky. 😆

Heck, just a simple “open workspace in new window” option would go a long way towards this!

[str4ngeMD]

• I wish I could grab a workspace by its label (or indicator dot), and just drop it in another window. Like how we can do with tabs.

[berot3]

I guess the question is, can tabs be window-agnostic in Firefox? Can I open any number of windows and have the same open tabs in all?

I would love this feature.

[Fxxxlei]

What do you mean by tailoring essential tabs to workspaces? isn't that just pinned tabs?

[RichardShift]

My earlier comment was based on the idea that Essentials could be shown and loaded with the same content across multiple windows. However, after testing again, I realized I was mistaken—Essentials are essentially just pinned tabs outside of workspaces.

That said, if I understand correctly, Essentials remain loaded and visible as you switch between workspaces, provided you stay within the same window. This only makes them workspace-agnostic, unlike pinned tabs, which are tied to specific workspaces. Right?

Building on that distinction, here’s my updated thought:

Could we go the extra mile and extend this workspace**-agnostic behavior** not just to Essentials, but also to pinned and non-pinned (regular open) tabs? Essentially, could all tabs be made window-agnostic? This would mean any open tab (pinned, Essentials, or otherwise) would appear consistently across multiple windows, as long as they belong to the same workspace.

I’m not a developer, so my understanding of Zen’s architecture may be limited, but I assume each window currently operates with its own "loaded data" (for lack of a better term). My question is:

Would it be possible to make this loaded data universal across windows?
Think of it like having multiple windows as portals to or around a single Zen sandbox (that physical thing one can play with). No matter which window you use, you’re interacting with the same unified sandbox. Could this concept work?

[Fxxxlei]

I think you mean the same thing as I explained in my first two comment (second and 4th from the top of the discussion).
Windows should just be views (you call it portals) into a shared state (for all tabs and workspaces (though it could be made configurable per workspace for non-essential tabs)).

I think this should be doable, since you currently can move tabs between windows more or less seemlessly. But mirroring could lead to all sorts of issues and might not be wanted anyway, so opening the same tab in different windows simultaneously should probably be prevented. I've explained more about that in my first comment.

[RichardShift]

I think you mean the same thing as I explained in my first two comment (second and 4th from the top of the discussion).

I have to say that your first comment (the second from the top of the discussion) was a bit confusing to me at first, but now that I’ve read it a third time, I think I understand it better. That said, I wouldn’t suggest having different "views" for the same tabs within a workspace (please read on for more details²), even when there are multiple windows open. My reasoning aligns with what you’ve also mentioned:

Windows should just be views (you call it portals) into a shared state (for all tabs and workspaces (though it could be made configurable per workspace for non-essential tabs)).

By “configurable” and to keep things simple, I would suggest providing a global option like:
“Show all non-pinned and non-essential tabs across all windows in their corresponding workspaces”.
This avoids introducing too many options, unless the majority of users would prefer configurability on a per-workspace basis.

²Aaaand, my main suggestion regarding the following point you made:

mirroring could lead to all sorts of issues and might not be wanted anyway, so opening the same tab in different windows simultaneously should probably be prevented. I've explained more about that in my first comment.

... is to handle this scenario by bringing the Zen window with the open tab to focus when a user tries to open the same tab in another Zen window. In this way:

• The tab wouldn’t open again in the second window since it’s already open in the first one.
• If someone wants to open Tab X in a different Zen window, they’d need to switch to another tab (Tab Y, Z, or whatever) in the window where Tab X is currently open.

IMO, this approach feels intuitive and avoids the complications of tab duplication or mirroring across multiple windows.

[Fxxxlei]

Your suggestion is probably easier to implement and is less confusing on paper at least. Without trying it out, I wouldn't know whether my suggestion is much more confusing in practice.

I think my suggestion could be more useful, since it allows you to move a tab to a different window with a single click. Furthermore, depending on the system configuration, focusing a window may not even put the focused window into view (with my configuration, if the window is on a hidden virtual desktop, I would only see the virtual desktop's icon blink).

I think that many people wouldn't like either of our suggestions, so this behaviour should be togglable anyway. I think that implementing my suggestion if yours is already implemented should not cost too much effort. If any of our two suggestions gets implemented, it probably would be a good idea to give options by implementing both.

By configurable, I did not mean per tab, but for all pinned tabs, essential tabs or all other tabs.

[friendywill]

[Fxxxlei]

I think you are talking about a different feature? AFAIK, this discussion was about synchronizing tabs between windows on the same device, not multiple devices.

[friendywill]

Yes thankyou, removing this now.

[FancyFurret]

I would absolutely love to see this feature as well. I am an Arc user looking for an alternative, and Zen seems perfect except for this issue. Once this is in I'll be able to move away from Arc.

[marcolaux]

Safari also does it with groups. In Arc and Safari I never have to fear about loosing tabs - as I always have them in every window and it does not matter which window I close in which order.

[multimokia]

If anything, I'd like a hybrid approach of this. I use different windows for Zen to keep things grouped in a neat way especially during development -- some windows hosting only the git clients, some hosting the various environments of the application, etc.

However there are SOME common items, which is what I use pinned tabs for currently -- I feel like I'd prefer to have the pinned tabs synced across all windows, but not every tab

To me, pinning is what should keep it loaded for every instance

[marcolaux]

or what about "global workspaces" that are the same everywhere? (as an option)
I would otherwise have to pin every individual tab - that is also not very efficient when I have a look at my workflow with Safari or Arc.

[Fxxxlei]

I did propose making this configurable, such that only pinned/essential tabs are synced between windows, configuring it per workspace sounds plausible as well.

Another use case would be the Element Chat that I pinned. I need it quite often, so I pinned it, but now it's visible in every window. Element only allows a single tab to work, so I have to find the correct window to actually use the tab. Syncing the tabs between windows would solve this issue.

[dustinosity]

this would be amazing

[mr-scrpt]

Does anyone know if there are any plans to implement this feature at all? Do the developers see our request?

[RJperson]

I would also love to see this. Honestly, I will switch completely to zen once the tab syncing is fixed (not only across different devices, but especially across different windows of zen on the same device). While I know that syncing pinned tabs between windows and devices is being worked on, I would love to have the unpinned tabs also be synced between multiple windows on the same device.

[sillen102]

Would love to see this as well. Using multiple windows on multiple monitors makes this feature a requirement. This is the only thing keeping me from completely switching to Zen.

[ShadowJonathan]

Coming from Arc, this is the one feature that is a make-or-break-it feature for me. Please implement this, Zen basically has the rest of Arc's featureset, except this.

[amitbartfeld]

[Pummelfisch]

I think what you mean is a sync between multiple devices. As far as I understand this issue, it's about synching tabs in workspaces on multiple opened windows on one device.
Or did I understand you wrong?

[amitbartfeld]

Ho you're right I just noticed

[Sekky61]

I want to take advantage of having different Zen windows/workspaces open in different desktops/screens. Currently, I need to be careful to close the windows in the right order in order to not lose open tabs. I think having tabs linked to the workspace instead of a window would solve this. Definitely would be a killer feature for me. Never lose a tab again!

[santacruzskim]

At a minimum, or as a holdover until proper window+tab+space management can be implemented, an option should be available where closing a window sends any open tabs to the next open window.

Or enable a space that just stores closed window tabs. Eg, "tabs from closed windows"

Or make the opening previously closed windows feature much more robust. Currently, the function of opening previously closed windows only works to recover old windows on occasion, depending on circumstance.

Basically, have some sort of function for backtracking to find lost tabs.

[Overlord231123321123]

This is the feature that keeps me in arc. Currently with zen, using come extensions I can get sync, but there is no auto-sync when I open a new browser window, and I have to open the extension and click restore every time, which makes it tedious. (if this feature is difficult to implement into a browser, I think an extension would suffice)

[gagarine]

It’s a bug, not a feature request.
If you implement a workspace system, synchronizing the state of this workspace across windows is necessary. If you don’t, they are “tab groups” rather than workspaces, and tab groups can be different in each window.

In the current implementation, you can close a window without realizing that you’re also closing other tabs. Back to Firefox until this is fixed.

[gagarine]

“Intended” doesn’t mean “correct” — it just means the design is flawed. If the behavior causes confusion or data loss, it’s a design bug, not a feature request.

A workspace implies synchronized state across windows. If that’s not happening, it’s a tab group, not a workspace (and a badly designed tab group). Accidentally closing a window and losing other tabs confirms this isn’t a proper workspace system.

Design bugs stem from flawed assumptions, poor design decisions, or overlooked edge cases during the design phase, even if the code works as intended. Many devs dismiss them as “working as expected” — but expected ≠ correct.

[sillen102]

For me the browser is completely unusable as is. I agree that this just doesn't feel as it was the intended behavior. Because if it is, it makes little sense. As soon as you use more than one window the browser feels broken and you never know what's going to happen with your tabs when you close one of the windows.

Don't get me wrong, the browser is awesome...as long as you only have a single window open. And it's a real shame because I actually like it, a lot. Like, I would move to using it full time in a heartbeat if this gets fixed.

[Mirsario]

A slightly satisfactory workaround for tab loss - closing the browser via application menu's Exit, or Ctrl+Shift+Q, does result in all windows and all of their tabs being reliably restored when the browser is reopened. But any other way of closing windows we have to avoid until the feature gets redesigned.

[RichardShift]

I'm tired of the tricks, tips, and workarounds for something so basic. Just make it an option — if the "normal" use cases don’t account for the need to preserve open tabs in workspaces without having to pin them all, then let users choose.

@gagarine , I simply echoed the well-explained issue you laid out here and opened a new issue — this time clearly described as a bug report, not a feature suggestion. Let’s see how it gets triaged:
#6789

[RichardShift]

For documentation purposes and to help anyone looking for a follow-up on this matter, please see: #7079

[retrobit]

This is an absolute necessity - it's chaos otherwise and the opposite of "zen"

[Quentin-claverie]

Another Arc user here, searching for a replacement. Loving Zen so far, except for this specific missing piece. Loosing tabs when accidentally closing a window, or having to move a tab to a different window by copy/pasting is something i really didn't miss ... Once you tasted this, there is no turning back !

[nirbhaykwatra]

Hi, bumping this feature request. This, along with sync across different computers, is one of the largest gaps in adopting Zen for me. A workspace should be persistent across windows, with all the pinned/normal tabs in that workspace being in every instance of that workspace.

[thunderfm]

I would love to see this implemented on Zen too. I only use a single window on my laptop, but on desktop, multiple windows are key to my workflow. I desperately want to be using Zen on all my machines but this is pulling back to Arc on my desktop machine because of using multiple windows.

[RCdeWit]

Just adding my 2c here, would love this as well. I've been using Zen for a few months now, and it's the one thing that I miss from Arc.

I just closed about 20 windows that I lost track of after "dragging out" tabs into separate windows. I usually work with 2 or 3 windows open. It would be amazing if I could stick them in place and just hop between tabs.