Enable Upcoming Redesigned Sidebar Feature in Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is going to get a dedicated sidebar similar to other web browsers in its upcoming versions. This article will help you in enabling and testing the redesigned sidebar right now in Firefox web browser.

Following screenshot shows the new sidebar enabled and working in Mozilla Firefox latest stable version:

At the moment, the sidebar is under development and testing phase and that’s why it provides very limited features to select. Currently, there are 4 options to select in the new sidebar:

• Insights
• History
• Bookmarks
• Synced Tabs

The “Insights” option is broken at the moment and does nothing when clicked. Other 3 options history, bookmarks and synced tabs are fully functional and can be used to open browsing history, bookmarks and synced tabs pane respectively.

The “History” section or pane has also received a complete overhaul. Following screenshot shows the new revamped history section enabled in the new sidebar:

As we told you the new sidebar is currently under development, it doesn’t contain any setting or option to change. In future Firefox versions, more functionality and features will be added to the sidebar.

We can also move the new sidebar to the right-side of the web browser. Following screenshot shows the new sidebar displaying on the right-side in Firefox:

The new revamped sidebar in Firefox has been developed to compete with other popular web browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi which already come with a dedicated sidebar.

We mentioned in following article that Firefox is going to receive many new features in upcoming versions and the new sidebar has been implemented to provide the upcoming vertical tabs functionality inside the web browser:

Firefox to Get Tab Groups, Vertical Tabs, AI Features and More

If you also want to activate and enable the upcoming sidebar feature in your Firefox web browser, following steps will help you in test driving the new redesigned sidebar right now:

STEP 1: Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

STEP 2: Now type sidebar. inside the preference search box and look for following preference:

STEP 3: The preference decides whether the new redesigned sidebar feature should be enabled or not.

By default, the preference value is set to false which means the sidebar feature is disabled in Firefox.

To activate and enable the new sidebar feature, double-click on the preference and it’ll change its value to True. Alternatively, you can click on the Toggle icon given next to the preference name to modify it.

STEP 4: You will need to restart Firefox to apply the changes. If you have opened multiple tabs and you don’t want to lose them, you can restart Firefox without losing tabs using methods given in following tutorial:

[Tip] How to Restart Mozilla Firefox Without Losing Tabs

After restarting Firefox, you’ll be able to use the new sidebar feature in your web browser.

STEP 5: If you want to move the sidebar to the right-side, open about:config page again and change the sidebar.position_start preference to false. This preference decides the position of the sidebar. The true value shows the sidebar to the left and the false value moves the sidebar to the right-side in Firefox.

If you want to disable the new sidebar feature, set the sidebar.revamp preference to false again.

Also Check:

Enable Upcoming Profile Manager Feature in Mozilla Firefox

Enable New Tab Page Background Wallpaper Feature in Firefox