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Is there a way to group tabs in Notepad++?

I frequently end-up with 30 or more tabs (files) opened, and it's becoming quite hard to figure out which tab I want to switch to.

If I could group them per affinity (one tab-bar per group?), that would be a good start.

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  • 5
    i have almost 1,000 tabs open
    – user7783780
    Nov 15, 2016 at 13:08
  • 2
    Maybe keyboard shortcuts could help? Ctrl+PgUp (or PgDown) allows you to scroll through tabs. Ctrl+W closes one, using arrows to highlight Yes or No on save prompt then enter
    – gregg
    Jul 13, 2020 at 21:27

11 Answers 11

Reset to default
47

How about Document List?

As of 2022 the Document List panel has a button on the toolbar

enter image description here

-- Previous Solution moved below - JBH Edit --

Go to Settings > Preferences... > General and under the Document List Panel heading, select the Show checkbox.

A vertical list of all open tabs opens on the left. I'm talking about Notepad++ version 6.3. Don't know about earlier.

enter image description here

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  • 4
    That would almost be a perfect solution, except that you cannot sort items listed in the Doc Switcher
    – klewis
    Jul 1, 2014 at 12:46
  • 5
    Thanks so much for that, Pavel. Never knew of it, and suffered for years with the default document switcher (the popup shown on ctrl-tab). I knew I could disable that but didn't want to. I liked being able to choose from a list. But sadly that list was never sorted/sortable, which was a pain. But blackhawk, about this doc list panel Pavel refers to, did you realize it IS sortable? Maybe it wasn't in 2014 (or maybe you really were still referring to the ctrl-tab popup, which is formally the "document switcher", vs this "document list"). Anyway, thanks again, pavel. I love the sorted list!
    – charlie arehart
    Apr 11, 2017 at 16:20
  • That's awesome!
    – Peanuts
    Feb 25, 2019 at 15:41
  • 1
    11 years later I'll mark this as my accepted answer :D
    – JB Hurteaux
    Feb 17, 2022 at 9:49
  • Not a real solution, though. The "Document List" does not allow moving multiple selected tabs at once. But even if it did, it would be still lame because there has to be a basic ability to select/move multiple tabs directly in the GUI, without any additional panels. Amazingly, even all those years later, such a simple thing is not possible.
    – DDRRSS
    Mar 14, 2023 at 13:35
15

Notepad++ has session management built-in;

Feature to save tab sessions.

EDIT: as of NppV6.5.4, Session Manager Plugin needs to be downloaded from Plugin Manager. It does not have a tool bar button and needs to be activated from Plugin -> Session Manager after install

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4
  • Also in the Notepad++ help file there is an article on Session Management. Second category "Session Management" within the Documentation Navigation.
    – wonea
    Feb 14, 2013 at 14:56
  • I cannot find this button or feature in my NPP v6.3 ??
    – Sébastien
    Apr 12, 2013 at 13:33
  • can't get this to work either - the session manager plugin doesn't show a button, even if you ask it to in settings. Maybe a diff plugin
    – jim smith
    Aug 22, 2014 at 8:06
  • 4
    The plugin is called "Explorer", not "Session manager". It's here: sourceforge.net/projects/npp-explorer
    – pkExec
    Feb 14, 2018 at 9:19
11

Go to Settigs > Preferences > General > Tab Bar check the multiline box to show your tabs in multiple lines.

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  • 3
    may be 5 years old (edit: 6.5 years old) but still relevant as I found this from search and it's almost 2017.
    – user7783780
    Nov 15, 2016 at 13:00
  • 1
    it is 2020 and still I have no found a suitable solution for this.
    – Jason Angel
    Jun 1, 2020 at 20:33
10

View -> Project -> Project panel #

works for me. You can add projects with their own files and directories as you like.

This makes it a lot easier to work with a lot of files from a lot of different folders from a lot of different projects.

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7

The File Switcher plugin may (or may not) suit your needs. It presents a sortable list, and has partial-title quick-search...

You can find it here: Directory for Notepad++ plugins

Here is a summary from the Plugins page:
"... a little plugin that switches between files, by entering any part of the filename. It's handy if you don't like taking your hands off the keyboard to switch files. Formerly known as Keyboard File Switcher."

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  • Useful but I would like it to dock, otherwise it is just one more window open as if I didn't have enough.
    – user7783780
    Nov 15, 2016 at 13:05
7

I found the perfect solution here: Notepad++ Tips and Tricks

Create new tab group: Similar to Visual Studio's New Vertical Tab Group, you can view documents (or tabbed groups of documents) side-by-side using View > Move/Clone Current Document > Move to Other View. F8 then toggles between these views. Choosing to Clone effectively implements split screen and any changes made to one view of the document will be replicated in the other.

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  • What are the ramifications to file auto-backup and the restoration/reopening of all previously open tabs when re-launching Notepad++ when using this method to create said tab groups?
    – skeetastax
    Apr 4 at 5:42
2

Not really an answer because I'm not aware of any specific tab management plug-ins, but it might be worth looking at. It's a plug-ib for NPP called Window Manager, it allows a slightly different view of open documents via a dockable window.

I have it installed in NPP and it's useful when there are multiple tabs open. It can be found at the bottom of the NPP plugins page

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1

Sort the files or tabs in alphabetical order in notepad++

  1. Click on Document list on the toolbar,
  2. A small window is opened to the left side.
  3. Click on Name to get the sorted list alphabetically.
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0

This may suit your needs too: as of Notepad 8.1.9 (Oct 2021), I just selected View -> Document List (which can be sorted).

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I can recommend my own plugin NavigateTo. More information: https://github.com/young-developer/nppNavigateTo/blob/master/README.md

Navigate To is a new and efficient way to quickly navigate between tabs(files) in your Notepad++. It allows you to search for a symbol or filename, filepath by matching against a keyword you type in, and get a real time preview while going through the search results by Shift key. And YES indeed you can uncheck the Multi-line option, in the Preferences > General > Tab Bar zone because you don’t need the multi-lines tab feature anymore :)

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    – Community Bot
    May 12, 2022 at 18:21
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    – Toto
    May 12, 2022 at 18:47
0

If you want to see all the multiple tabs opened without scrolling the tab, there is a multi-line option in settings. Settings -> Preference -> General -> Tab Bar -->> enable Multi-line (see image) enter image description here

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  • 1
    This doesn't answer the question.
    – Toto
    Jul 21, 2023 at 7:47
  • Yes, looks like. But I reached on this page looking for one problem that I had to scroll the tabs when there are too many tabs opened. Which is kind of unmanageable as per me. But above way has helped to see all the tabs opened in one screen at top.
    – Lokesh Purohit
    Jul 23, 2023 at 13:03

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