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Put a warning when accidentally clicking on the 'x' on a tab!

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Guys, please. Stop making it so damn difficult to send you a bloody email. I don't want to look through hundreds of FAQ's, PAQ's or any other suggestions. I certainly don't want to struggle to register just so that I can have a voice and type what I want instead of sift through templates of what other people have written. It's pretty flipping simple: PUT A WARNING WHEN THE 'X' IS CLICKED ON A TAB.

Too many times I have multiple tabs open, I am working in a high-pressure environment and need to access between tabs quickly. There may be times where I mis-click and accidentally hit the 'X'. Yes it's my fault for mis-clicking, but you have an option in place safeguarding closing the whole window, so why not apply that same safeguard to the 'X' within a tab?

I have just lost 15 minutes worth of an email because that little 'X' closes the tab mercilessly without even prompting if I am sure I'd like to close the tab.

Come on Mozilla, please help me continue to use Firefox.

Regards,

Guys, please. Stop making it so damn difficult to send you a bloody email. I don't want to look through hundreds of FAQ's, PAQ's or any other suggestions. I certainly don't want to struggle to register just so that I can have a voice and type what I want instead of sift through templates of what other people have written. It's pretty flipping simple: PUT A WARNING WHEN THE 'X' IS CLICKED ON A TAB. Too many times I have multiple tabs open, I am working in a high-pressure environment and need to access between tabs quickly. There may be times where I mis-click and accidentally hit the 'X'. Yes it's my fault for mis-clicking, but you have an option in place safeguarding closing the whole window, so why not apply that same safeguard to the 'X' within a tab? I have just lost 15 minutes worth of an email because that little 'X' closes the tab mercilessly without even prompting if I am sure I'd like to close the tab. Come on Mozilla, please help me continue to use Firefox. Regards,

Chosen solution

Returning to the main issue, it's true that when you have a lot of tabs open, the close button on a background/inactive tab may be a dangerously large percentage of the width of the tab. There isn't a built-in feature to warn you about closing a background/inactive tab, and many users are saturated with warnings, so there might not be much appetite for adding a new one.

You can, however, remove the close button from background/inactive tabs using a hidden preference. Here's how:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste close and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.tabs.closeButtons preference and enter the number of your preferred behavior, then click OK:

0 => close button only on the currently active tab (not on other tabs)

1 => close buttons on all tabs (default)

3 => single tab close button at the right end of the tab bar to close the active tab (Firefox 1 style)

2 => no tab close buttons anywhere (use Ctrl+w to close the active tab, or right-click any tab > Close Tab)

Read this answer in context 👍 3

All Replies (4)

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Hope this reaches you before you close that window...

To undo a closed tab, while still in the same window, try any of these:

  • Ctrl+Shift+t
  • right-click another tab > Undo Close Tab
  • History > Recently Closed Tabs
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Chosen Solution

Returning to the main issue, it's true that when you have a lot of tabs open, the close button on a background/inactive tab may be a dangerously large percentage of the width of the tab. There isn't a built-in feature to warn you about closing a background/inactive tab, and many users are saturated with warnings, so there might not be much appetite for adding a new one.

You can, however, remove the close button from background/inactive tabs using a hidden preference. Here's how:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste close and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.tabs.closeButtons preference and enter the number of your preferred behavior, then click OK:

0 => close button only on the currently active tab (not on other tabs)

1 => close buttons on all tabs (default)

3 => single tab close button at the right end of the tab bar to close the active tab (Firefox 1 style)

2 => no tab close buttons anywhere (use Ctrl+w to close the active tab, or right-click any tab > Close Tab)

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You can also middle-click a tab to close the tab.

See also:

You can set the browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab pref to false on the about:config page to prevent closing the last tab from closing that window and make a close button appear if only one tab is open.

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That is EXACTLY what I was looking for, thank you so much, I am very impressed!