How to use the new Vivaldi Workspaces feature to cut down on browser tab sprawl
How to use the new Vivaldi Workspaces feature to cut down on browser tab sprawl
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How to use the new Vivaldi Workspaces feature to cut down on browser tab sprawl
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I’ve long said Opera has the best tab management feature on the market with its Workspaces. That feature alone kept me using Opera for a long time. And although I’m still waiting for my favorite browser, Firefox, to come up with something to rival Opera’s feature, another browser has beaten them to it. That browser is Vivaldi.
Vivaldi takes a slightly different approach to Workspaces, and it’s just as good.
Also: Too many Chrome tabs open? Here’s how to take back control
With Opera, the Workspaces feature resides in the sidebar, where you can quickly access any one of the workspaces you’ve created. With Vivaldi, the feature lives as a drop-down in a tab… and it works really well.
Before I show you how to use Vivaldi’s Workspaces, you might be wondering why you would need to. For that, let me ask you a question. How many tabs do you have open on your browser at this moment? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? I’ve been known to have over 30 tabs open at any one time. If you’ve ever experienced that, you know how hard it can be to navigate those tabs. With that many open, the tabs become very small, which means it can be next to impossible to discern which tab is which.
With Workspaces, you can move those tabs to specific “categories” you create, such as Work, News, Social Media, Shopping, etc. So, instead of having twenty tabs clogging up your browser, you might have only five tabs in each Workspace. That is considerably easier to manage.
Also: This might be my new favorite browser
Now that you understand why, let me show you how.
How to create new Workspaces on Vivaldi
What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need is the latest version of the Vivaldi browser. As of this writing, that is version 6.0.2979.11. If you’re not using at least that version, make sure to go to the Vivaldi Download Page and download the latest version of the browser.
1. Open the Workspace drop-down
With the latest version installed, open Vivaldi, and click the Workspaces drop-down in the farthest left tab. From that drop-down, click New Workspace and then click either New Workspace or New Workspace With 2 Tabs.
The Vivaldi Workspaces feature is a breath of fresh air for users needing to get their tab game organized.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
2. Name your workspace
In the resulting popup, give the new Workspace a name and click Create.
That will automatically switch to the new Workspace, where you can open all the tabs you need that are relevant to the category.
Also: How to easily see your open Chrome tabs on other computers
Continue creating as many workspaces as needed.
Make sure to give your new Workspace a name that helps keep your tabs organized.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
How to move a tab to a Workspace
You will eventually find yourself in a situation where you have an unrelated tab in a workspace. When that happens, all you have to do is move it.
1. Locate the tab to be moved
Find the tab you want to move to a specific workspace and right-click it.
2. Move the tab to another Workspace
From the resulting popup menu, click Move Tab > Workspace > Name (Where Name is the name of the destination Workspace). The tab will be moved from the current Workspace to the one you’ve chosen.
Also: How (and why) to use Firefox Container Tabs
You can then switch to that Workspace by clicking the Workspace drop-down (from the far-left tab) and selecting the Workspace you want to switch to.
Moving a tab to a new Workspace is just a matter of navigating through the menu.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
And that, my intrepid explorers, is how and why you should use the Vivaldi Workspaces feature. With this new option, your web browsing experience will be exponentially more efficient. Give it a go and see if the new feature doesn’t have you humming the Four Seasons and singing the praise of Vivaldi… the composer and the browser.
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