Using Tabs In Apps Other Than Your Web Browser

While most Mac users will use tabs in their web browser, many forget that tabs work well in the Finder and other apps too.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how Tabs are for more than just your web browser. 
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Now, of course, when you're using your web browser naturally if you want to view another webpage, but keep this one around, you would create a new Tab either by using the menu choice here or Command T. Then you can just continue to open new tabs, you can even use this plus button here to do it, and have multiple tabs and go between them. While this is natural in a web browser and we've gotten used to it since this feature has been introduced, often Mac users don't take advantage of using tabs in other situations as well. Many apps support tabs.
So here I am in the Finder. Now if you want to have a second location open at the same time you may go to File, and then New Finder Window, and have two Finder windows. Then kind of move them around and juggle them to see both. Maybe drag and drop files from one to the other. But you can use Tabs here too. Notice under File there's New Tab. It's the same keyboard shortcut, Command T. Now you have got a second Tab open in the same Finder window. I can go to one location in one of these and another location in another. So I've got two different locations open in two Tabs rather than two windows. You can continue to create more Tabs if you need to as well. But everything will be neatly contained here in this one Finder window. 
Now you can work with these Tabs just like you can work with the Tabs in Safari and other browsers. So if I want to close a tab, notice if I move my Pointer over the tab I have an x button and I can close any one of these tabs. I can also close the current tab by going to File, and then Close Tab. Notice Command W, the keyboard shortcut for closing a window, changes to Close Tab when I have multiple tabs open. So I can use Close Tab three times and it will close this tab, then the next tab, and then I would be down to just one tab in that window, so Command W would simply close the window. I could also move through the tabs by clicking on anyone of the tabs. I can use the same keyboard shortcut that you use in Safari. That's Control, not the Command Key but Control, and Tab to cycle through the tabs. Holding the Shift Key down, as well as Control, does it backwards. I can rearrange Tabs simply by dragging and dropping. So you can see I can rearrange these here. I could also get a Tab Overview. If I go into View and then Show All Tabs or the same keyboard shortcut that Safari uses, Shift Command and Backslash. This will bring all the tabs into little previews here and I even get one to the right that's a big Plus button and I can use that to create a New Tab, or I can hit the Escape Key to exit that mode.
There's also an option in the Finder Menu for Settings, under General, for Open Folders in Tabs instead of New Windows. So, with this turned Off if I Control click on a folder there, you can see it says Open a New Window. If I hold the Command Key down and double click you can see it opens up in a New Window as well. But if I were to turn this setting On then Control Click, or right click, or two-finger click on a trackpad, is Open A New Tab. Holding the Command Key down and double clicking will also open up in a New Tab. In addition there is something in System Settings that you should checkout. Under Desktop & Dock you go down to Windows, notice that there's Prefer Tabs When Opening Documents. You can set that to In Full Screen, Always or Never. So this applies to more than just the Finder. This applies to other apps as well including third party apps. They should all follow this rule that you've set here. 
Now some other things you should know about in the Finder. If you go down to, say, just one Tab here notice how it still shows me the tab. That's because under View I've got the Tab Bar shown. So you can toggle back and forth here. Shift Command T will do that. The advantage to not having the Tab Bar hidden is even when you have one tab open you've still got the Plus button here to the right. Whereas if I have it turned Off there's no way to add a new Tab except to go to File and then New Tab. After you've got the tab there then the Tab Bar is shown, it has to be since you've got more than one tab and you need a way to switch between them. 
You also should know about some options here under Window. So let's say that you have multiple Finder windows. Let's go and create a New Finder Window here and I'll go to a folder in that one. I'll create another New Finder Window and I'll go here. Now I can go to Window and I've got the option to Merge All Windows. So it takes all of the currently open Finder windows and puts them together in Tabs. In the Window Menu you also have the ability to move a Tab to a New Window. So I've got this one here opened and if I were to choose that you could see it takes it out. But I can also do that without the Menu. I can just grab a Tab and drag it. You can see it breaks it apart into a New Window. You can also bring them into Windows like that. So this is where it helps to have the Tab Bar shown. I show it here. I use the keyboard shortcut to show it here. Now I can grab this tab here and drag it into this window by putting it in the Tab Bar. The same thing if I've got another Finder Window. Let's create two new Tabs in here. Now I can move tabs around to rearrange them. I'll put this one here and I'll drag this one to this window like that. 
Now I know one of the things you're probably thinking is this could be a problem with the Finder when you've got Files and you want to move from one location to another. So let's say I want to move this file to this folder. Well you can do that without opening up another window. All you need to do is start dragging a file, move it to the Tab here, and wait. You can see how it jumps to that Tab and you can drop it in. So it is fairly easy to keep everything in one window with Tabs and still be able to drag and drop. 
Let's look at some other apps here as well. So, here I am in Pages and let's create a New Pages Document. I'll use a template for that. If I want to create another New Document I can choose another template and now I've got two separate windows. I had the ability, under Window, to merge all windows. When I do that it puts both of those documents in the same window under 2 Tabs. Now I can use the Plus button here to create a New Tab as well. Now you can see I've got things in 3 Tabs. Once I've got the Tabs I can drag them around as before. I can drag them from window to window as well. 
Now in System Settings if I go to that Desktop & Dock setting that we saw before and changed Prefer Tabs to Always, now when I go to create a New Document here I see that it will open up in a New Tab, not a new window. I still have the ability to look at all Tabs although the keyboard shortcut isn't there by default in Pages. But you can see it this way and then use the Plus button to create another one and it is going to ask for a template and I'll pick it. So now I've got all these different tabs and I can Close them. I can even use Control and Tab and Control Shift Tab to move between them. 
Now you can use tabs in Numbers as well. You can see it works the same way. One of the problems here is sometimes I hear people refer to Sheets, like these three sheets that are in this one document, as Tabs. That's not correct. These are sheets and not Tabs. But it can add some confusion if you also have Tabs and yet you're still referring to sheets as Tabs. So make sure to use the right terminology. 
Now Tabs works in apps where you're using documents or in a browser where you've got a location. It doesn't work when you have an app where there is a central window. Like, for instance, in the Photos App or in iMovie or something like that. When it is not easy to have multiple windows open because it doesn't really have the document metaphor, then usually tabs aren't available. Tabs also work in third party apps, for instance, here's Pixelmator Pro. When I open up a New Window here you can see it's doing it as a Tab because I have that System Setting there. I've got two tabs. You can see I've used the keyboard shortcut to move between them. I've got the Tab Overview right there with the same keyboard shortcut. So you'll find functionality like this in a lot of common third party apps, especially ones that use document metaphor where each window or tab is a separate document. 
Sometimes there is a bit of a hybrid. For instance, in Mail there's one central window where you basically check your messages. But you can double click on a message and it will open up in a separate window. Those windows can have Tabs. So if I open up this Message as well you can see now, because I have the option to open in Tabs instead of Windows in System Settings, I now have these in two Tabs. The same is true for composing new messages. So I compose a new message like that. If I also start another new message you can see I've got them both in Tabs now instead of in different windows. 
So if you're used to having many Finder Windows or many Document Windows open at the same time on your Mac, I encourage you to look into using Tabs instead. It can help you tidy up your screen. It can make it easier to find things. It can combine the idea of allowing you to focus on one document or folder at a time while still having multiple locations or documents open and easily available. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Using Tabs In Apps Other Than Your Web Browser”

Sheldon

12 months ago

Thanks bunched

Chrissie

Posted this Q on YouTube, but I think the Q part was overlooked: I noticed in Calendar's View menu an option for "Hide Tab Bar," but it only seems to pop up a spot that says "Calendars" below the "Day / Week, etc." buttons. Is this leftover from a previous version of Calendar where it was possible? Would LOVE this feature to exist in Calendar, but this appears to be a useless functionality. More options are in View & Window, but they are grayed out. Thanks!

Gary Rosenzweig

Chrissie: Yes, Calendar includes many Tab options in the menus, but doesn't seem to have a way to actually create a second window or tab.

Thanks, Gary! I appreciate it.

Rod Magner

Sometimes in safari I will click to open a link in a window and once that is open it becomes the ONLY tab in the tabs bar. Clicking to go back to the previous window does nothing. I have to go to history to locate it.

Rod: You'll need to investigate further to see what is happening. Look in the Windows window to see if this opens a second window, for instance. Or maybe see if you have accidentally switched to a new Tab Group or something like that.

is there a way to save a Finder window with a certain tab group?

JP: No. But you can always just not close the Finder window. That's what I do. I have a Finder window open with the tabs I need and haven't closed it in ... I can't remember. Could be years.

Using Tabs In Apps Other Than Your Web Browser

Comments: 8 Responses to “Using Tabs In Apps Other Than Your Web Browser”

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