Edge Canary is taking tabs vertical for some users

Horizontal tabs are so last decade.

Update, August 10 (3:00 pm ET): Vertical tabs appear to be rolling out to even more Edge Canary channel testers now. If you haven't seen the feature yet, check for the latest update and restart your browser.

What you need to know

• Edge's new vertical tabs are now in testing with some Canary channel users.
• The feature moves tabs from a horizontal layout above your content to a vertical view on the side.
• This appears to be part of an A/B test, so it's not available for everyone to try yet.

Microsoft announced it was working on a vertical tabs UI for Edge earlier this year, and now it's ready for (limited) testing. Edge Insiders using the Canary channel are starting to see the feature roll out. However, it appears to be part of an A/B test or slow rollout, so it's not available for all Canary testers just yet.

Initially posted by Aggiornamenti Lumia, the vertical tabs UI is accessible via a small icon to the left of your normal tabs. Hovering over the icon reveals "switch to vertical tabs" text. When you click the button, all of your tabs will then shift to a sidebar to the left of your content that can be collapsed and opened at any time.

Vertical Tabs are here #MicrosoftEdge pic.twitter.com/0jWmCNkAHd

— Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) August 3, 2020

The point behind the vertical tabs UI is to give people who have lots of tabs open a more usable experience. The traditional horizontal layout can be tough to navigate if you have more tabs open than your screen can accommodate. With vertical tabs open, you'll always be able to see the title of the pages you have open in a scrollable interface.

It's unclear how widespread this test is yet, but it should gradually make its way to more Edge Insiders as Microsoft iterates upon it. For now, if you have Edge Canary version 86.0.597.0 installed, you'll know whether you can access vertical tabs right away if you have the "switch to vertical tabs" button available upon launch.

If you have yet to give any Edge Insider channels a try, you can download the Beta, Dev, and Canary channels at the Edge Insider site.