Tabs

Open as many folders as you want in a single window, tear tabs out into new windows, re-dock them, and pick up exactly where you left off after restart.

Table of contents

  1. What is it?
  2. Opening, closing, and switching
  3. Tab context menu
  4. Tear-off and re-docking
  5. Session restore
  6. Per-tab state
  7. Special tabs
  8. Workspaces
  9. Multi-window
  10. Tips & gotchas
  11. See also

What is it?

Span Finder gives every folder its own tab — like a browser. Each tab has an independent path, view mode, navigation history, and (if you use it) a split-view state. You can open unlimited tabs in a window, drag tabs between windows, tear a tab out to create a new window, and have every tab restored automatically the next time you launch the app.

Windows 11 File Explorer added basic tabs, but it does not offer tear-off, re-docking, duplication, session restore across restarts, or per-tab view modes. Span Finder does.

Opening, closing, and switching

Shortcut Action
Ctrl + T New tab
Ctrl + W Close current tab
Ctrl + N New window
Ctrl + Tab Next tab
Ctrl + Shift + Tab Previous tab
Middle-click a tab header Close that tab
Middle-click a folder / drive / favorite Open it in a new tab

Korean keyboard note: Ctrl + T, Ctrl + W, Ctrl + Tab, and numeric switchers work on Korean IME layouts without any extra config. If you use Ctrl + ` to open a terminal and it doesn’t register, Ctrl + ' is available as a fallback — Span Finder adds both because the backtick scancode differs on Korean keyboards.

Tab context menu

Right-click any tab header for quick actions:

  • Duplicate — Clones the tab with its exact path, view mode, and icon size
  • Close — Close this tab
  • Close others — Keep only the right-clicked tab
  • Close tabs to the right — Keep this tab and everything to the left
  • Move to new window — Tear the tab off without dragging
  • Save tab layout… — Save all current tabs as a Workspace

Tear-off and re-docking

Drag a tab away from the tab bar and you get a brand-new window containing just that tab. Drop a tab from another Span Finder window onto your tab strip to re-dock it.

  • Dragging out of the window — Tear-off. The new window opens where you drop and a TabStateDto snapshot carries the path, history, view mode, and split state.
  • Dragging onto another Span Finder window — Re-dock. A ghost-tab indicator shows exactly where the tab will land and the target window becomes slightly translucent while hovering.
  • Dragging within the same tab bar — Reorder.
  • Dragging a single-tab window — Moves the window instead of tearing (tear-off is suppressed when there is nothing left behind).

Tab widths are fixed, Chrome-style — dragging a tab with a long folder name will not shove its neighbors around.

Session restore

By default, Span Finder remembers your tabs between sessions. Close the app with 12 tabs open across two windows, and the next launch brings them all back — same paths, same view modes, same split states, same Miller column selections.

To change this behavior:

  1. Press Ctrl + , to open Settings
  2. Navigate to Startup behavior
  3. Choose between Restore last session (default) or Home screen

You can also disable tab session saving entirely under Window & Session settings.

Tip: Session restore validates every saved path before opening. If a folder was deleted or a USB drive was ejected, the tab is skipped gracefully — no error dialogs on startup.

Per-tab state

Every tab independently tracks:

  • Current folder path and selection
  • Navigation history (Back / Forward stack, up to 50 entries)
  • View mode — Miller / Details / List / Icons
  • Icon size (for the Icons view)
  • Split view — Whether it’s on, which folders are open in each pane, each pane’s view mode
  • Preview panel state — Open/closed, file being previewed

Switching tabs restores all of this instantly thanks to per-tab folder caches.

Special tabs

  • Home — Shows quick access, recent folders, and favorites. One click away from any new tab.
  • Settings — Opens as a dedicated tab (Ctrl + ,). Only one Settings tab can exist at a time, and it is excluded from session save.
  • Recycle Bin — Opens as a regular tab that you can browse, restore from, or empty.

Workspaces

When you have a tab layout you want to reuse — say, “client-A project” across five specific folders, or “photo editing” across your RAW input and JPEG output folders — save it as a workspace:

  • Ctrl + Shift + S — Save the current tab layout as a workspace
  • Ctrl + Shift + W — Open the workspace palette to restore, rename, or delete one

See the Workspaces page for the full writeup.

Multi-window

You can open as many Span Finder windows as you need. Each window owns its own tab set. Closing the last window exits the app — the app registers and unregisters every window centrally, so tabs in background windows never disappear unexpectedly.

Tips & gotchas

Tip: Hold Ctrl while middle-clicking a folder in the sidebar to open it as a new tab in the background without switching focus.

Tip: Re-docking lets you consolidate scattered windows. Drag every stray tab back into your main window at the end of the day.

Gotcha: Session restore saves tab paths, not open files. If you had a file selected in Quick Look when you quit, Quick Look will not reopen automatically.

See also