Reputation: 24338

How can I prevent VS Code from replacing a newly opened, unmodified (preview) tab with a subsequently opened one?

I am using Visual Studio Code 1.3.1 with the newly introduced tabs.

When I click on files, the first file will open in a tab. If I do not make any changes to this file, the second clicked file will open in the same tab.

How can I avoid this and make Visual Studio Code always open a new tab?

Upvotes: 2063

Answers (30)

jam j

Reputation: 584

For 2025

VSCode Version:

1.85.1
1.95.1
1.96.2

Please follow the instruction

Upvotes: 3

Fattie

Reputation: 12373

For 2024:

easy as pie, tap preferences (that's command ⌘ + , on Mac),

The secret is "Enable preview"

they added it right there:

The logic is:

Turn OFF (uncheck) for NORMAL behavior.

i.e.:

Turn OFF (uncheck) to avoid the "automatic closing" behavior.

Upvotes: 89

Ahmad Awais

Reputation: 37208

⚡ Actually, VSCode shows you the preview of a file.

You can disable the preview with this:

"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false,

⬇️ Basically just add these two settings and you're good to go.

Upvotes: 29

jialin wang

Reputation: 3696

I came up with the same problem, and open setting.json file, add the following:

"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false

Upvotes: 256

Nazmul Haque

Reputation: 868

From settings you can find edit settings.json You need to search by Preview. Please check the below screen short.

Add the below code there:

"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false

Image of this section

Full code given below: { "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {

},

"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false,

}

Upvotes: 13

Sergio Mcfly PYK

Reputation: 4331

Inside the settings.json

{
"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false,
"workbench.editor.enablePreviewFromQuickOpen": false
}

Upvotes: 1

JRrelyea

Reputation: 301

File > Preferences does not exist in VS2022

For VS 2022 specifically, this does work: open the menu Tools > Options > expand Environment > select Tabs and Windows

Then, simply uncheck "Allow new files to be opened in the preview tab"

Checked was my default. Changing it to unchecked got rid of the preview tabs in VS 2022

Upvotes: 0

Basim Aly

Reputation: 134

In my case, I have to additionally disable the Editor > Limit option to work correctly with the above settings mentioned in the comments. Otherwise, it will keep re-use the same tabs

Upvotes: 1

Paul Schwartzberg

Reputation: 81

As hktang above indicates:

one Click opens the file in preview mode (header text in italics)

Double click the same file, it goes out of preview-mode (header text changes from italic to normal font)

I think this is a "compromise" feature allowing users, to "navigate" both worlds; preview and none-preview.

All you do is click the file to open it in the right panel.
Then immediately double click it to keep it there.
Or - just treble click. File opens in none preview mode.

Upvotes: 8

Krishan Pal

Reputation: 406

Tried all above answers but below one worked finally. Put that in setting.json.

"workbench.editor.showTabs": true,

Upvotes: 2

Brynden

Reputation: 37753

When you [single-]click a file in the left sidebar's file browser or open it from the quick open menu (Ctrl-P, type the file name, Enter), Visual Studio Code opens it in what's called "Preview Mode", which allows you to quickly view files.

Preview Mode tabs are not kept open. As soon as you go to open another file from the sidebar, the existing Preview Mode tab (if one exists) is used. You can determine if a tab is in Preview Mode, by looking at its title in the tab bar. If the title is italic, the tab is in preview mode.

To open a file for editing (i.e. don't open in Preview Mode), double-click on the file in the sidebar, or single-click it in the sidebar then double click the title of its Preview Mode tab.

If you want to disable Preview Mode all together, you can do so by setting "workbench.editor.enablePreview": false in your settings file. You can also use the "workbench.editor.enablePreviewFromQuickOpen" option to disable it only from the quick open menu.

Before you can disable Preview Mode, you'll need to open your Settings File.

Pro Tip: You can use the Command Palette(shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P) to open your settings file, just enter "Preferences: Open User Settings"!

Once you've opened your settings file (your settings file should be located on the right), add the "workbench.editor.enablePreview" property, and set its value to false.

You can learn more about Visual Studio Code's "Preview Mode" here.
See also article How to Always Open Files in a New Tab - VSCode

Upvotes: 3479

Craig

Reputation: 21

In my case I had accidentally changed the setting for viewing files in tabs and didn't know where to look to change back to the behavior I was used to i.e. double clicking on the files name in the file explorer pane (typically LHS) to open the file in a new tab.

There is a setting to check or uncheck "enable tabs".

In VS Code 1.77.3 you can click on the 3 dots on the RHS (see image below)

Note: Full version info of my VS Code installation: Version: 1.77.3 Commit: 704ed70d4fd1c6bd6342c436f1ede30d1cff4710 Date: 2023-04-12T09:16:52.732Z Electron: 19.1.11 Chromium: 102.0.5005.196 Node.js: 16.14.2 V8: 10.2.154.26-electron.0 OS: Linux x64 6.2.0-20-generic snap Sandboxed: Yes

Upvotes: 1

The Gentelmen 24

Reputation: 315

1. Double-click your files instead of single-clicking.

Instead of single clicking on your files, (like I do in the previous GIF) double-click. This will tell VS Code that you want the file to stay open when you switch to a new file.
Here's my beautiful demonstration of this:

2. Double-click the tab you want to keep open

This works if the tab you are working with is in "Preview Mode" (italicized) and you want it to stay open when you open another file.

3. Right click your tab and select "Keep Open"

This one's self-explanatory. Simply right-click on the Preview Mode tab on the tab at the top of your screen (while it's italicized) and click on "Keep Open" once the context menu pops up.
Here's my beautiful demonstration of this:

When you single-click a file in the left sidebar's file browser or open it from the quick open menu (Ctrl-P, type the file name, Enter), Visual Studio Code opens it in what's called "Preview Mode", which allows you to quickly view files.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Very often while programming you will only need to open a file for a small window of time, to "preview" its contents.

FOR MORE INFO

Upvotes: 13

samivic

Reputation: 1310

Menu File → Preferences → User Settings: add this line

"workbench.editor.enablePreviewFromQuickOpen": false

Upvotes: 22

hoogw

Reputation: 5535

You need to edit settings.json file, which is located at:

Windows %APPDATA%\Code\User\settings.json
macOS $HOME/Library/Application Support/Code/User/settings.json
Linux $HOME/.config/Code/User/settings.json

{
  "workbench.editor.showTabs": true,
  "workbench.editor.enablePreview": false
}

Upvotes: 7

hktang

Reputation: 1833

Watch for filenames in italic

Note that, the file name on the tab is formatted in italic if it has been opened in Preview Mode.

Quickly take a file out of Preview Mode

To keep the file always available in VSCode editor (that is, to take it out of Preview Mode into normal mode), you can double-click on the tab. Then, you will notice the name becomes non-italic.

Of course, you can simply double-click to open a file. This will open the file in a new tab, skipping the Preview Mode.

Feature or bug?

I believe Preview Mode is helpful especially when you have limited screen space and need to check many files.

Upvotes: 36

Pranta Palit

Reputation: 700

to open another file in a new tab keeping the current file open,

first double click (left click) the current file
then click (single click) the new file

in this way, the new file will be opened in another tab

#OR

you can drag the new file from vs code project explorer and drop it beside opened tab, exactly where the new tab will be opened

Upvotes: 4

Hadi Mir

Reputation: 5133

Go to File > Preferences > Settings
Search for workbench.editor.enablePreviewFromQuickOpen
Set it to false or uncheck it.

Upvotes: 5

Pramod

Reputation: 848

This is not a new answer. It is just showing how to do it via UI. Open settings via File => Preference => Settings. The most upvoted answer is the correct choice.

Then in search field type Preview.

After that select Workbench and look for Enable preview options.

Uncheck the boxes.

Upvotes: 18

Maddy

Reputation: 86

Simple and Best way is whenever you open new file it is in preview mode so simply press the CTRL + K and then press ENTER then you done with preview mode , Now this file will remain always open until you closed it that's what you need to do ....

Upvotes: 3

Shailendra Madda

Reputation: 21551

For those who using Windows OS:

Press Ctrl + Shift + P
Select Preferences: Open Settings (JSON) from the list
Select all and Paste this { "workbench.editor.enablePreview": false }

That's it now it will open in a new tab instead of replacing on the existing one.

For reference look at the screenshot below:

Upvotes: 4

Manju

Reputation: 79

If you have opened a file in preview mode and want to open new file in another tab: For Mac: use cmd + p -> find the file and alt + enter.

Upvotes: 0

Ahmad Awais

Reputation: 37208

Actually, VSCode shows you the preview of a file when you open it. If you want to open files in a new tab, just disable the preview with this setting (paste this in the settings.json file).

"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false,

— you can take it one step further and use this setting

"workbench.startupEditor": "newUntitledFile",

— It will open your VSCode editor with a blank new untitled file to quickly get started.

Upvotes: 4

jontem

Reputation: 4171

If you don't want to disable preview mode you can explicitly tell vscode to keep a specific tab open. As mentioned above a tab heading with italic text is in preview mode.

To get a tab out of preview mode you can either right click on the tab and choose keep open or use the shortcut cmd + k enter that is mapped to the command workbench.action.keepEditor.

Furthermore, double-clicking on a tab also gets it out of preview mode (verified in vscode 1.44.0).

Upvotes: 214

Natta Wang

Reputation: 551

For anyone who don't want to disabled Preview Mode.

As I read whole of comments and I found what I preferred that is the shortcut key to pin the opened file from Quick Open/Ctrl+P or that's mean to keep the opened file to the editor, and yes also don't need to switch your hand to the mouse to double-click on files list.

Thanks to @jontem and @MattLBeck.

Call save command with Ctrl+S (⌘+s on Mac) is the easiest way to reach what I preferred.

And if you found out you do this to keep opened file to editor quite frequently, yes I preferred you should setting the option "workbench.editor.enablePreview": false or "workbench.editor.enablePreviewFromQuickOpen": false as others mentioned before.

Upvotes: 26