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When you use Ctrl-Tab in Firefox, you move through tabs in the order that they are listed in the tab bar at the top of the window. I would prefer that when I use Ctrl-Tab the next tab that I switch to is the most resently used tab. That way if I have two tabs I am using frequently I can easily switch between them without having to manually modify the ordering of the tabs via drag/drop. This is a feature that Opera has which I find to be very productive. Does anyone know of a setting or plug-in that will accomplish this for me?

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6 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

I would recommend Tab Mix Plus. It allows you to completely customize the way the tab menus function. Quite a bit of configurable behavior.

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up vote 3 down vote

For FF 3.6.3:

  1. Type about:config in address bar and then Enter
  2. Type "ctrl" in the "filter" box
  3. Double-click "browser.ctrlTab.previews" item so the value becomes "true"
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I like this solution, it works pretty well. The tab preview window doesn't slow down your system much since it doesn't appear if you switch fast enough. – Jonn Jul 12 '11 at 6:03
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up vote 2 down vote

Two extensions you could check Ctrl-Tab and Tab-Mix-Plus

Ctrl-Tab -- the highlighted part is what you want.

Ctrl+Tab navigation for Firefox tabs:

  • Tabs are presented in most-recently-used order,
    similar to Alt+Tab on various operating systems
  • Releasing Tab and pressing it again moves to the next preview
  • Pressing W closes the selected tab
  • Releasing Ctrl switches to the selected tab
  • Hidden preferences: browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed

Ctrl+Shift+A / Cmd+Shift+A shows all tabs in a grid:

  • Shows all open tabs
  • Tabs can be closed by middle clicking
  • Search field filters tabs based on their titles and addresses, Enter selects the first tab

Tab-Mix-Plus -- also supports the MRU scheme you want; with lots of other features

Includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

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up vote 0 down vote

You could just use ctrl+shift+tab and ctrl+tab to go back and forth. That's how most things work and it makes more sense.

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up vote 0 down vote

@Cosmin,

The new FF also seems to have browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed

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up vote 0 down vote

In Firefox 7 (maybe earlier versions too?), go to about:config and set the option browser.ctrlTab.previews to true.

If you release the Ctrl key quickly after Ctrl+Tab, you will get the MRU tab switching behavior you described (without previews).

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