Settings: Columns

PRO Feature

The Columns pane is Pro-locked; the free tier uses vertically tiled columns only. Saved values are kept and come back when you upgrade.

The Columns pane

Default Column Layout

Stack new multi-window columns asVertically TiledTabbed

Tab Appearance

Hide when single tab

Place within column

Show title on hover

Title max length100

Show thumbnail on hover PRO

Thumbnail scale10%

PositionLeftRight

Active color

Inactive color

Tab width14 px

Gap before window1 px

Tab radius8 px

Gap between tabs5 px

Tab sizeDistributedPercentagePixels20%

Stacked vs Tabbed Columns

Stacked

Terminal

Editor

Logs

Tabbed

Terminal

How tabbed columns work

When a column is in tabbed mode:

All windows in the column share the same screen space
Only the active tab is visible
A vertical tab indicator strip shows all tabs on the left or right edge
Hyper+↑ or Hyper+↓ cycles through the tabs
Click a tab indicator to switch to that window

Press Hyper+T to toggle the focused column between tiled and tabbed at any time. The pane's first control only decides the default for new multi-window columns. Window-rule group actions can also force a mode per app (see Window Rules).

Default Column Layout

Control	Default	What it does	Config key
Vertically Tiled / Tabbed	Tabbed	How windows stack when a column gains a second window: tiled one-above-the-other, or tabbed with only the active tab visible.	`layout.stackedColumnDefault`

Tab Appearance

The tab indicator is the colored strip beside a tabbed column. Every control below styles it; the two hover-tooltip rows indent under Show title on hover and are disabled while it is off.

Control	Default	What it does	Config key
Hide when single tab	on	Hide the indicator when a column has only one tab.	`layout.tabIndicator.hideWhenSingleTab`
Place within column	on	Draw the indicator inside the column (the column's content narrows to make room). Off: it overlays the neighboring column instead.	`layout.tabIndicator.placeWithinColumn`
Show title on hover	on	Hovering an inactive tab shows its window title in a tooltip.	`layout.tabIndicator.tooltipTitleShow`
Title max length	`100`	Character cap for the title tooltip. Slider 0–200; at 0 the title is off.	`layout.tabIndicator.tooltipTitleMaxLength`
Show thumbnail on hover PRO	on	Also show a live window thumbnail next to the tooltip title. A cached texture appears instantly while a fresh capture loads.	`layout.tabIndicator.tooltipThumbnailShow`
Thumbnail scale	`10%`	Thumbnail size relative to the real window. Slider 5–50%.	`layout.tabIndicator.tooltipThumbnailScale`
Position	Left	Which edge of the column carries the indicator strip.	`layout.tabIndicator.position`
Active color	`#7fc8ff`	Indicator color for the focused tab.	`layout.tabIndicator.colorActive`
Inactive color	`#517B9C`	Indicator color for background tabs.	`layout.tabIndicator.colorInactive`
Tab width	`14 px`	Thickness of the indicator strip. Slider 1–20.	`layout.tabIndicator.width`
Gap before window	`1 px`	Space between the indicator and the column content. Slider 0–20.	`layout.tabIndicator.gap`
Tab radius	`8 px`	Corner radius of each tab segment. Slider 0–20.	`layout.tabIndicator.cornerRadius`
Gap between tabs	`5 px`	Vertical space between tab segments. Slider 0–20.	`layout.tabIndicator.gapsBetweenTabs`
Tab size	Percentage `20%`	How tall each tab segment is; see the three modes below. Switching modes reveals a contextual slider.	`layout.tabIndicator.tabSize`

Tab size modes

Mode	Slider	Meaning
Distributed	—	Tabs share the full indicator height evenly.
Percentage	1–100%	Each tab is a fraction of the column height.
Pixels	10–500 px	Each tab is a fixed pixel height.

YAML equivalent

layout:
  stackedColumnDefault: tabbed      # "tiled" or "tabbed"
  tabIndicator:
    hideWhenSingleTab: true
    placeWithinColumn: true
    position: left                  # "left" or "right"
    width: 14
    gap: 1                          # gap between indicator and content
    cornerRadius: 8
    gapsBetweenTabs: 5
    colorActive: '#7fc8ff'
    colorInactive: '#517B9C'
    tabSize: 20%                    # "distributed", "20%", or "100px"
    tooltipTitleShow: true
    tooltipTitleMaxLength: 100
    tooltipThumbnailShow: true
    tooltipThumbnailScale: 10%