Adding compact tabs support like in Safari

[ghoul]

Bumping this because I think it deserves more attention.

Safari’s compact tab mode on macOS Sequoia is one of those changes that sounds minor until you actually use it. The address bar and active tab collapse into one unified strip, inactive tabs shrink to minimal chips, and suddenly you’ve reclaimed a meaningful chunk of vertical space that every other browser just wastes. Brave’s whole identity is built around doing more with less — blocking bloat, giving you back control of your browsing experience. A compact tab bar feels like a natural extension of that philosophy. The giant address bar sitting on top of a full-height tab strip is arguably the last major piece of UI chrome that nobody has seriously challenged on desktop (outside of Apple). An opt-in toggle under Appearance → Tab bar style would be all it takes. No radical redesign, just let the people who want a tighter UI have it.

[br4ve_account1111]

This gets requested every year and promptly ignored:

Compact tabs like in Safari

Adding vertical tabs is already very useful to gain vertical space, however it comes with its share of problems (hard to read, new tab button that I would prefer to be on top, …). Would it be possible to add a compact tabs mode at the top of the window like Safari does (and even more compact vertically)? This would make the tabs more readable, especially when few are open, and it would also save horizontal space compared to vertical tabs. [image] Thanks in advance!

Compact tabs like Safari

Vertical tabs are sort of ok, but this enormous address bar at the top is just wasted space. All browsers should give the possibility of moving the tabs to the tool bar. There’s absolutely no need to have both a tool bar and a separate bar for tabs. It’s just redondant. Safari screenshot for reference, where each tab is an address+search bar. [Capture d’écran 2024-11-28 à 13.44.49]

Try the Helium browser. It’s Chromium-based, so compatibility should be on par with Chrome and Brave, but it has what’s called “Compact Mode” which is quite close to Safari’s Compact Tabs. The only feature missing is address bar integration into the active tab, but there is a highly-upvoted feature request for that.