Warp Vertical Tabs Configuration Guide | Generated by AI
Question: How does Warp’s vertical tabs layout work, and how do you configure it?
Answer:Answer:
Vertical tabs is a recently shipped feature (docs updated ~3 days ago). Here’s the full breakdown:
Enable It
Navigate to Settings → Appearance → Tabs and toggle “Use vertical tab layout” on.
That’s it. The horizontal tab bar disappears and a resizable left sidebar takes its place.
What the Sidebar Shows
The vertical tabs panel replaces the horizontal tab bar with a sidebar showing rich metadata, drag-and-drop management, and display options for tabs and panes.
Key UX features inside the panel:
- Compact vs expanded mode — choose between a dense single-line view (default) or a detailed multi-line layout with full metadata.
- Configurable pane titles — control which metadata appears first: last command or conversation, working directory, or Git branch.
- Hover detail sidecar — hover any pane row to see full, un-clipped metadata in a floating detail card without changing focus.
- Search + drag-and-drop + rename — filter panes by title, directory, or branch; reorder tabs or move panes between tabs by dragging; double-click a tab to rename it inline.
Toolbar Control
The “Tabs panel” button in the configurable toolbar toggles the vertical tabs sidebar. The side a button lives on determines which side of the window its panel opens on — so you can move the toggle to the right side if you want the sidebar on the right instead.
The configurable toolbar works with both horizontal tabs and vertical tabs.
Tab Configs (TOML — Reusable Layouts)
This is the power-user feature that pairs well with vertical tabs. Save a tab layout as a .toml file:
# ~/.local/share/warp-terminal/tab_configs/workstation.toml
[[panes]]
cwd = "~/projects/myrepo"
command = "ssh lzw@192.168.1.36"
[[panes]]
cwd = "~/projects/myrepo"
split_direction = "horizontal"
Right-click any tab in the vertical tabs panel or horizontal tab bar, then click “Save as new config” — Warp generates a .toml file from the tab’s layout, commands, and directory.
Tab configs live at:
~/.local/share/warp-terminal/tab_configs/ # stable
~/.local/share/warp-terminal-preview/tab_configs/ # preview
The new config appears in the + menu automatically.
Practical Layout for Your Workflow
Given you have MacBook Air (daily) + workstation at 192.168.1.36:
Vertical sidebar tabs:
├── [local] ~/projects ← daily coding
├── [ssh] lzw@192.168.1.36 ← GPU workstation
├── [monitor] nvidia-smi -l 1 ← training watcher
└── [logs] tail -f train.log ← model output
Each of these as a saved Tab Config → one click from the + menu to restore the full layout. This is the real win over iTerm2 — no session manager plugin, no tmux on local, just TOML files you can version control.
Why Vertical > Horizontal at Scale
- Horizontal tabs truncate past ~6 tabs — you lose tab names
- Vertical sidebar scales to 20+ tabs with full metadata visible
- Git branch + working directory visible per tab without switching — critical when you’re juggling multiple model training runs or agent sessions
References: