You may soon use Tabs in Notepad for Windows 11

[harlan4096]

Microsoft seems to be working on bringing support for tabs to the default Windows plain text editor Notepad. A screenshot of an internal version of Notepad was posted to Twitter by a Microsoft Senior Product Manager.

The tweet has been deleted in the meantime, but the Web does not forget. A copy of it is available on the Internet Archive website (via Phantom of Ocean3)



The screenshot shows an updated Notepad text editor interface that features tabs prominently at the top. Tabs give users the option to load multiple text files in the same Notepad window.

Microsoft introduced support for tabs in File Explorer earlier this year, after it cancelled the attempt to bring tabs to all windows of the Windows operating system.

Tabs were introduced with the first Moments update for Windows 11 version 22H2 shortly after the release of the first feature update for Windows 11. The File Explorer implementation of tabs is fairly limited when compared to third-party solutions. While it does support opening and closing tabs in any File Explorer instance, it lacks options to move tabs around or drag a tab to create a new File Explorer instance using it.

It is too early to tell if the tabs implementation in Notepad will support these features. The single screenshot that leaked does not reveal much apart from the fact that Microsoft is working on support for tabs in the application.

Tabs in Notepad allow the user to load or create multiple text documents in a single editor window. It is likely that the implementation will support the same features that the File Explorer tabs implementation supports. If true, it would mean that the implementation would lack the same features that the File Explorer implementation is lacking.

The new feature could find its way into Insider Builds in the coming weeks or months. Since tabs in File Explorer have been introduced as a Moments update, it is possible that tabs in Notepad will also be introduced as a Moments  update. Microsoft plans to release two Moments updates for Windows 11 in the coming months.

Many third-party text editors support tabs and are more feature-rich than Notepad. Programs like Notepad++ or Notepad3 come to mind.

Microsoft appears to have switched from bringing universal tabs support to Windows, to introducing support for tabs in individual apps. It is possible that the company is working on bringing tabs to more default apps.

Now You: Any built-in Windows program that you would like to see tabs added to?
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