Earlier, next to the minimize button, there used to be a down arrow button that showed all open tabs and allowed reopening recently closed ones:
But recently I noticed that option was gone
It was a very useful feature, especially for recovering accidentally closed tabs or quickly accessing recent apps without having to navigate through the full history.
Is there a way to bring it back or re-enable it? If it were removed, I’d really love to see it return
Current Brave Version: Brave 1.80.115 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Hello - Can you visit brave://settings/appearance and confirm you have Show tab search button enabled?
@anushanga it’s still there but changed icon and location.
You even show it in your screenshot, just weren’t looking at the right location.
I put two arrows and a circle to where it is, rather than your long thin arrow to nothing.
This changed in Chromium, so all browsers are impacted. UI will change often. Usually when you see a change, it’s good to see what else was added or removed. Nothing will ever stay the same forever.
Why on Earth was this changed when it worked fine before? You confused probably literally millions of people just to change something for the sake of change.
It was changed upstream by Chromium. Ask them.
It’s just an inherited change, not something Brave did. And small enough teams at Brave that I don’t see them dedicating resources to the cosmetic change. Everything still works perfectly fine.
https://9to5google.com/2025/05/19/google-chrome-tab-search-update/
The previous method for searching was through the downward-facing arrow key to the left of the “new tab” button. Familiar users would have no issue finding the function, but an arrow doesn’t exactly convey the right functionality.
So if we want to trust things like that they are saying that they did it to make it easier for the average user to find it and have control.
And I have seen some discussion elsewhere where they said that it was done because they changed code to help tabs and tab groups sync better. Which is in part why it was added to the toolbar instead. But I don’t know much about all that.
Guess the big thing in life is things always change.
