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How to remove close icon from tabs?

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 26 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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I finally gave a newer version of FF a try after sticking with 56.0.2 for a long time. Before I go back to 56 again, how do I get rid of the close icons on the tabs? Or at the very least make it so that only the foreground tab has a close icon.

I got so used to having ONE close icon at right end of my tab bar and now, even after two weeks after leaving FF 56, I'm constantly closing the wrong tab because even background tabs have close icons on them ... and I keep clicking the one at the right end of my tab bar.

I'm on the verge of going back to FF 56 anyway to get back other customization options. Whether or not I can fix this close-icon-on-every-tab issue is going to be the determining factor.

I finally gave a newer version of FF a try after sticking with 56.0.2 for a long time. Before I go back to 56 again, how do I get rid of the close icons on the tabs? Or at the very least make it so that only the foreground tab has a close icon. I got so used to having ONE close icon at right end of my tab bar and now, even after two weeks after leaving FF 56, I'm constantly closing the wrong tab because even background tabs have close icons on them ... and I keep clicking the one at the right end of my tab bar. I'm on the verge of going back to FF 56 anyway to get back other customization options. Whether or not I can fix this close-icon-on-every-tab issue is going to be the determining factor.

Chosen solution

I can help you with eliminating the close button from background tabs, but not the foreground tabs. Firefox does automatically hide the close button when you have a lot of tabs open and the tabs set so skinny that it's no longer realistic to display the close button on it.

Basically, you just have to change the smallest width that a tab can be before Firefox starts to do this. To change the setting, do the following:

  1. Enter about:config in your Firefox address bar
  2. Bypass the warning message
  3. Find the browser.tabs.tabClipWidth
  4. Change the value to a large number (for example, 1000000)
  5. Restart Firefox

Hope this helps.

There's a more advanced way to modify Firefox to hide all of the close buttons on the tabs, but I'm not sure if it still works and I'm not sure of your technical abilities. If you are interested in giving it a try, it was outlined in this past support request.

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Chosen Solution

I can help you with eliminating the close button from background tabs, but not the foreground tabs. Firefox does automatically hide the close button when you have a lot of tabs open and the tabs set so skinny that it's no longer realistic to display the close button on it.

Basically, you just have to change the smallest width that a tab can be before Firefox starts to do this. To change the setting, do the following:

  1. Enter about:config in your Firefox address bar
  2. Bypass the warning message
  3. Find the browser.tabs.tabClipWidth
  4. Change the value to a large number (for example, 1000000)
  5. Restart Firefox

Hope this helps.

There's a more advanced way to modify Firefox to hide all of the close buttons on the tabs, but I'm not sure if it still works and I'm not sure of your technical abilities. If you are interested in giving it a try, it was outlined in this past support request.

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Many thanks - I did the userChrome thing and it worked perfectly.

I'll play around more with that file and see if I can figure out how to put a close tab icon at the right end of the tab bar. If not, it's not big deal to use Ctrl-W to close tabs because at least that only closes the foreground tab and I no longer have to worry about constantly closely the wrong tab.

Thanks again,

Rob

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Add code to the userChrome.css file below the default @namespace line.


@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* only needed once */

#tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab .tab-close-button {display:none!important}


There is no way to add one close button to the Tab bar. You can middle-click a tab with the mouse scroll wheel to close this tab.