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Show active running tabs on top similar to browser tabs #18778
Description
What variant of Codex are you using?
App
What feature would you like to see?
For each active tab showcase a tab on the top to keep context of all running tabs (exclude history). Eg:
Additional information
No response
Reacted by ithiria894, Marcos Hernanz, Muhammad Hashmi, Glenn 'devalias' Grant, kep-walter-24, cymbal316, Juntao Tan, Michael Gartner, Shaurya Sharma, Luis Fernanado Perez Alvarado and 3 more
Activity
github-actions commentedon Apr 21, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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ithiria894 commentedon Apr 30, 2026
I'm also running into this in the Codex Desktop app.
My main use case is keeping several conversations open at the same time, for example:
Right now switching between them means going back through the thread list or history, which adds a lot of friction and breaks flow. What would help most is browser-style conversation tabs across the top so active threads stay visible and are one click away.
The key part for me is persistent, fast switching between active conversations, not just history navigation. Pinning or reordering tabs would be a nice bonus, but even a minimal version would already make the app much easier to use for parallel work.
marcoshernanz commentedon May 18, 2026
Any updates? This would come in pretty handy
0xdevalias commentedon Jun 20, 2026
See also:
Tangentially adjacent:
Lyle-xub commentedon Jul 18, 2026
see https://github.com/Lyle-xub/codex-tabs
JimmyKing89 commentedon Aug 27, 2026
Adding a Windows use case and a mockup in support of this request.
One of my favorite parts of the Codex desktop app is the clean, focused workspace when the left sidebar is collapsed. However, I often run two or three conversations in parallel. Switching between them currently means reopening the sidebar and searching through a long list of conversations and topics, which interrupts my train of thought.
The mockup below shows the behavior I would find most useful:
This would not replace the sidebar; it would provide a lightweight “working set” for the conversations I am actively using.
Channeling a little Chandler Bing: could switching between active conversations be any more sidebar-dependent? 😄
I would genuinely appreciate a quick maintainer take on this—even a short “worth exploring” or “not currently planned” reply would be useful.
Environment: Codex desktop app for Windows, version 26.818.8289.0.
cor-of-org commentedon Oct 2, 2026
I just spent 20m in Codex trying to figure out where my tabs had gone before I realised, Hey "It's Codex", the only app on planet earth that doesn't do this! Obviously I have been working in a real agent app, like OpenCode, for a while.
What a waste of time!
Someone, fucking fix this shit. Like now.
[edit]WHAT THE FUCK!!![/edit]
kance-yuan123 commentedon Oct 15, 2026
I'd like to add a research and academic reading use case to this request. I use Codex Desktop to study papers, with one research project containing many independent conversations — one conversation per paper.
In this workflow, each thread accumulates its own paper-specific context: notes, explanations, questions, and follow-up analysis. I often need to switch back and forth between several papers to compare concepts or revisit a particular explanation. Having to open the sidebar and find each conversation repeatedly interrupts reading and makes navigating a large literature collection cumbersome.
What would help:
For example:
Research project | [Paper A: Concept Maps] [Paper B: ICAP] [Paper C: Retrieval Practice] [+]This would make Codex meaningfully more useful for long-running research and knowledge work, not only for concurrent software development. Even a minimal version with visible, persistent tabs and one-click switching would be extremely valuable.
Thank you for considering this workflow.
KageRyo commentedon Oct 17, 2026
+1, would love to see this feature!
Switching between conversations through the sidebar is inconvenient, especially when working across multiple projects. It would be great to have browser-like tabs with keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Tab) and preserved scroll positions when switching between chats.
travelliu commentedon Nov 8, 2026
I often run several Codex tasks in parallel, and repeatedly switching through the conversation list makes it hard to keep track of each task. Browser-style tabs, with one conversation per tab and each task preserving its own context, would make this much easier. A split view to display two conversations side by side would also be very useful when comparing or following related tasks. The existing sidebar can remain the full history; tabs would be a quick working set for currently active tasks.