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How do I toggle between Tabs in Firefox like Windows Alt+Tab?

  • 11 replies
  • 11 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Mr-Love

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In Firefox I often wish to toggle between tabs. I need a keyboard shortcut that would transfer to the previously activated tab. This would exactly as Alt+Tab in Windows.

In Firefox I often wish to toggle between tabs. I need a keyboard shortcut that would transfer to the previously activated tab. This would exactly as Alt+Tab in Windows.

Chosen solution

Actually, this is secretly built in. :-)

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste ctrl and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click browser.ctrlTab.previews to set its value to true.

Now try Ctrl+Tab and, like Alt+Tab, release the tab but keep Ctrl down. Feel familiar?

This works on a per-window basis for this window and other windows opened going forward.

Unfortunately, on my system, only 6 thumbnails fit, but for purposes of going back to the previous tab or two, it's probably sufficient. What do you think?

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All Replies (11)

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Hello Jeff,

The list of keyboard shortcuts is found on this page: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly#w_windows-tabs

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I cannot find a keyboard shortcut that does what I wish to do. I need to toggle between two tabs just as Windows does with Alt+Tab does with tasks. If some could provide the key combination that does the toggle, I would be grateful.

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Ctrl+Tab goes to the next tab, and Ctrl+Shift+Tab goes to the previous tab, but I'm not aware of any way to go the last active tab. I wonder whether that information is captured anywhere? (History shows the date/time of page retrieval, but switching around among tabs and just reading stuff doesn't show up there, as far as I know.)

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Hello,

Please go to the Following link=

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly#w_windows-tabs

Remeber= Ctrl+Tab is to the next while Ctrl+shift goes to the one before/previous.

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You can switch between tabs numbered 1 through 9 by pressing Control+1 through 9. This only works for the first 9 tabs, since there is only 9 single digit numbers!!

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Chosen Solution

Actually, this is secretly built in. :-)

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste ctrl and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click browser.ctrlTab.previews to set its value to true.

Now try Ctrl+Tab and, like Alt+Tab, release the tab but keep Ctrl down. Feel familiar?

This works on a per-window basis for this window and other windows opened going forward.

Unfortunately, on my system, only 6 thumbnails fit, but for purposes of going back to the previous tab or two, it's probably sufficient. What do you think?

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Ctrl+9 always goes to the last tab, so you can only reach the first 8 tabs directly.

You can also use Ctrl+PageUp and Ctrl+PageDown to cycle through the tabs in addition to Ctrl (+Shift) Tab.

Note that you can move the current tab with Ctrl+Shift+PageUp and Ctrl+Shift+PageDown in Firefox 20 and later.

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This works great and is exactly what I needed. It should be built in to Firefox.

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Thank you so much, ever since I started using Firefox I've been using an add-on for this, but lately that stopped working - even better with a built-in solution!

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Support for Ctrl tab previews has been removed in Firefox 21 (Bug 670684 - Remove all tabs panel code).

You can use Tab groups (Panorama) instead.

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I'm using 23.0.1 and it works fine?