Can you set always open a new tab?

Nevermind. New tabs were being opened but they didn't fit in the bar so the old tab was being pushed off. It seemed like tabs were being reused but they really arent. My bad.

If you go to Settings > Editor > Editor Tabs,  you can change nr. of open tabs and other tab behavior (placement, closing policy etc)

Where is the option in the newer intellij's?
This is driving me bonkers

Here:

Is this option no longer available. I'm using 2021.2.3 for Linux. There does not appear to be a way to always open new files in new tabs. I can have just one tab open and I want to view other classes in the same folder. I have to pin the tabs, an extra step I sometimes forget. It's also annoying when I'm getting ready to do work but just need to see the contents of files in a large code base. 

Chris What specific option are you looking for? The files will open in new tabs by default.

I am having the same issue. When I open a new tab, it replaces my current tab, and I cannot find the option to change this. It's driving me insane!

If anyone is still facing this issue, I found the culprit. Checking this option causes new files to replace the current tab. I'm pretty sure this is a bug.

Yes, it's a bug: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-255328.

Already fixed in https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/nextversion/.

That's the solution. Thanks!

This seems to be back in IntelliJ 2022.3. I'm using the new UI preview if that matters (switching to it caused some other options to reset as well, so it might have something to do with it).

Opening a new class, be it via F4 from another Window inside IntelliJ or from the class search, will open the class in the same tab. The option from Alexander Larsen's screenshot is switched off in my case, so I assume it is the bug resurfacing. I'd be glad to see the old behavior restored.

Please see https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/11/intellij-idea-2020-3-eap7/#preview_tab. Disable the Preview Tab option.

This seems to do the trick. Thank you for the quick response, Serge Baranov.

Thanks, Serge Baranov

This was a really irritating feature to have implemented automatically.  I pretty much always want a new tab to be opened when I ctrl/cmd click something...

Also, it goes against "ctrl" opening in a new tab in other contexts (like when browsing).

Thank you Serge Baranov  for note. 

The Bug is Back again in Version 2022.3.2 the solution to disable the preview tab is not a good solution as it always opens every file i click what causes a big mess with my tabs! it worked perfectly in older PHPStorm versions back in 2022.

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The Bug:
ctrl+click opens everything in the same (preview) tab. The option (open declaration source in the same tab) in "settings > advanced options" has no effect at all.

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Expected result (what worked):

• ctrl+click opens every in new tab (not the preview)
• ctrl+click on something inside the newly opened tab should open another (new) tab

• click (once) on a file in the browser should open in the preview tab
• click on another File in the browser should open this in the same preview tab

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Also since the big update of PHPStorm (end of the year 2022) the IDE become very laggy!

Michitheonlyone

As it says in IDEA-304419, the new behavior is intentional. It can be turned off using the registry key editor.preview.tab.navigation (Shift-Shift -> "registry").

We also plan to redesign the settings related to preview tab in version 2023.1 to make the available configuration options more clear.

Enable Preview Tab was the problem in my case. What an horrible feature, why would someone want this enabled by default. I don't want to ever replace my existing tab while coding.

Thanks Serge. Preview Tab was the Culprit. Was really annoying, and started even to affect my productivity.

Thanks, Arina Efremova! Unchecking this option in registry worked for me in Pycharm 2023.1

This drove me crazy for 3 days. This is one of the most horrible "features" I've experienced in an IDE and should be off by default, especially for those of us who upgraded.

What's the reasoning behind this functionality? I am often browsing different files and if no edits is made - file is replaced instead of opened in new tab. Frustrating. I will try to disable preview tab!

See https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2020/11/intellij-idea-2020-3-eap7/#preview_tab.

This is so frustrating when trying to navigate through multiple layers of an application (services, repositories) with interfaces involved.  If clicking on a method via CTRL+B, there's a 50/50 chance it'll either replace my current tab or open a new tab.  My train of thought is derailed when this happens.  Between this and the quick search being broken (e.g. double shift)…  the new UI is very nice and pretty, but it clearly introduced unwanted features that broke things I've depended on the IDE for years.

The Preview tab is a great new feature, but the inability to set it to open in a new tab makes it a frustrating feature.

You can disable this feature by unticking Enable Preview Tab in the Project tool window options (the vertical ellipsis icon in its toolbar).

see this screenshot:

https://jbs.zendesk.com/attachments/token/9PTDF4Sp4NeDXvneVtMX3g6rP/?name=IDEA+disable+preview+tab.png 

This has been driving me nuts for ages …. cant understand why this behaviour was changed to be the default … it really does slow down productivity on a large code base.

The real issue for me is that this is a fundamental change of behaviour and the option to “fix” this is not shown on the "Editor Tabs" form …. instead you need to search for “editor tabs” then look under “Advanced Settings”  and disable 

 “When navigating to a file, prefer selecting existing tab in inactive split pane”

“Open declaration source in same tab”

Only found that by pure chance after the 10th attempt … was so annoying was ready to switch IDE.

Denevil This was not the default before, they made this the default after some update and I agree, it drives someone mad trying to find the setting. This can actually drive new users away from the IDE if they leave this as default because most people assume tabs behave like in all other applications by default. This is clearly not the way most software behave with tabs. Just as most people expect similar shortcuts frequently used to also behave the same like copy, paste, etc.

I'd like to add my voice to the chorus. Having this turned on by default is incredibly frustrating, especially since there is no visual clue about what is happening. It took finding this issue to understand what Preview Tab was actually doing, and once I saw, I immediately turned it off.