Side panel
Keep a site, an extension's panel, or the AI chat open beside the page.
The side panel slides in beside the page and holds one of these at a time:
- Sites from the command center's bottom rail. X, YouTube, Instagram, Discord, and ChatGPT are there to start with.
- Extensions' panels, for extensions that have one.
- The AI chat, while AI is on. See AI chat.
Sites in the panel are signed in as they are in your tabs, and your extensions work in them too.
Opening it
- Press a site's button on the command center's bottom rail. Pressing it again while it shows closes the panel.
- ⌘Ctrl⌥AltS opens or closes the panel, on whatever it showed last.
- On a Mac, View → Side Panel in the menu bar does the same.
You can change ⌘Ctrl⌥AltS in Settings → Keyboard shortcuts. Next in side panel steps through what's open in the panel; it has no keys until you pick some there, and you can also put it on the wheel.
If a site was showing when you quit, it opens again at launch.
The bar
Everything you open stays in the panel's bar until you close it, with the one showing pressed. Opening something new shows it; closing what's showing goes back to the one before it.
- Middle-click a button to close it.
- Right-click a button for Show, Open in full tab, Reload, Move to Left / Right Side, and Close.
- The arrow keys move between buttons.
Two panels at once
Sites and extensions open on the left by default and the chat on the right, each in a panel of its own, so you can have X open on one side while the chat works on the other. Put both on the same side and they share one panel, switched from its bar.
Find and zoom in a site
With a site in the panel focused, ⌘CtrlF, ⌘CtrlG, and the zoom keys (⌘Ctrl=, ⌘Ctrl-, ⌘Ctrl0) act on that site, not the tab beside it. A site's zoom is shared with its tabs. ⌘Ctrl⇧ShiftC copies the site's address. See Find and zoom.
A video in a site can go full screen as it would in a tab. Esc brings it back.
Hidden sites sleep
A site you switch away from, or that's showing when you close the panel, is unloaded after a while so it doesn't keep using memory. It loads again where it was when you show it. Extensions' panels don't sleep.
Settings
Settings → Side panel:
| Setting | Does |
|---|---|
| Sites open on | Left or Right. The page gives up that side to sites and extensions |
| Chat opens on | Left or Right, for the AI chat (shown while AI is on) |
| Chat below site headers | On a site with a header across its top, the chat opens below the header instead of beside it (not with the glass design) |
| Gap beside the panel | Space between the page and the panel |
| Space around the panel | Space between the panel and the window's top, bottom, and outer edge |
| Dim behind the window | With the glass design, how much darker the desktop shows through the gaps |
| Unload hidden sites after | 5 minutes, 15 minutes (the default), 1 hour, or Never. With Never, a hidden site keeps playing and using memory |
Sites
Settings → Side panel → Sites lists the sites on the bottom rail. Drag them to reorder, add your own with Add a site, and choose whether each opens in the Side panel or in Full view as a tab.
Drag the panel's inner edge to make it wider. The width you give sites is kept for next time.