explaingit

piroor/treestyletab

Analysis updated 2026-07-03

3,752JavaScriptAudience · generalComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

TLDR

Tree Style Tab is a Firefox extension that replaces the horizontal tab bar with a vertical sidebar showing tabs as a collapsible tree, automatically grouping child tabs under the page they were opened from.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Tree Style Tab))
    What it does
      Vertical tab sidebar
      Automatic tree grouping
      Branch collapse
    Features
      Drag and drop tabs
      Companion extension API
      Dev build artifacts
    Installation
      Mozilla Add-ons store
      Firefox Nightly
      Build from source
    Tech Stack
      JavaScript
      Node.js
      WebExtensions API
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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Keep dozens of research tabs organized by topic as the extension automatically groups child tabs under the parent page where each was opened.

USE CASE 2

Collapse an entire branch of related tabs to hide them without closing them, reducing visual clutter while keeping the pages available.

USE CASE 3

Drag and drop tabs in the sidebar to manually reorganize the tree when automatic grouping does not match your preferred structure.

USE CASE 4

Build a companion Firefox extension using the Tree Style Tab API to interact with or modify the tab tree structure from another add-on.

What is it built with?

JavaScriptNode.jsnpmWebExtensions

How does it compare?

piroor/treestyletabfomantic/fomantic-uifspecii/ace-step-ui
Stars3,7523,7503,750
LanguageJavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyeasyeasyhard
Complexity1/52/54/5
Audiencegeneraldevelopervibe coder

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
No specific license terms were mentioned in the explanation.

In plain English

Tree Style Tab is a Firefox browser extension that replaces the standard horizontal row of tabs with a vertical sidebar where tabs are arranged as a tree. When you open a link in a new tab from an existing tab, the new tab becomes a child of that original tab. Opening further links from the child creates grandchildren, and so on. The result is a branching structure that mirrors the path you took while browsing, making it easy to see what you opened from where. The sidebar lets you collapse a branch by clicking on its parent tab, which hides all its children until you expand it again. This is useful when you have many tabs open on the same topic and want to tuck them away without closing them. You can also drag and drop tabs to rearrange the tree manually if the automatic grouping does not match how you want things organized. The extension is available for free from the Mozilla Add-ons website. Installing it from there gives you a signed, stable release. Development builds for each code commit are also available as build artifacts on the GitHub Actions page, though these are unsigned and require extra steps to load into Firefox, either through the temporary add-on loader in the browser's debugging settings or through Firefox Nightly with signature checking disabled. For developers who want to build the extension from source, the README provides steps using Node.js, npm, and standard Unix tools. The extension also publishes an API that other Firefox extensions can use to interact with the tree structure, and a wiki page lists known companion add-ons that extend its behavior. The README is long and covers a detailed FAQ, project policies, and a list of similar extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Vivaldi. The full README is longer than what was shown.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I installed Tree Style Tab in Firefox. How do I make it automatically collapse child tabs when I switch to a different parent tab?
Prompt 2
How do I build Tree Style Tab from source using Node.js and load it as a temporary add-on in Firefox for local development?
Prompt 3
Show me how to write a small Firefox extension that uses the Tree Style Tab API to move all tabs matching a URL pattern under a designated parent tab.
Prompt 4
I have 80 tabs open across several topics. Walk me through using Tree Style Tab's drag-and-drop to group them into branches and then collapse the ones I am not using right now.

Frequently asked questions

What is treestyletab?

Tree Style Tab is a Firefox extension that replaces the horizontal tab bar with a vertical sidebar showing tabs as a collapsible tree, automatically grouping child tabs under the page they were opened from.

What language is treestyletab written in?

Mainly JavaScript. The stack also includes JavaScript, Node.js, npm.

What license does treestyletab use?

No specific license terms were mentioned in the explanation.

How hard is treestyletab to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is treestyletab for?

Mainly general.

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