IT Support Tip from Oxford – How to Stop Firefox Tabs Sliding and Fit More Tabs on Screen
Last week, a long-standing client in Oxford contacted us with an unusual but very relatable request. Their team prefers using Mozilla Firefox for its privacy features, but one member of staff had switched from Chrome and was struggling with the way Firefox handles tabs.
In Chrome, all tabs keep shrinking to fit across the width of the window. In Firefox, once the tab bar fills up, the tabs stop shrinking and begin sliding horizontally. The constant scrolling made it difficult for the user to navigate between multiple websites during their day-to-day work.
They didn’t want to move back to Chrome — they simply wanted Firefox to behave more like Chrome.
So they asked:
“Is there a way to stop Firefox tabs from sliding and make them all fit on the screen like Chrome does?”
At AGGIA — IT Support in Oxford, we often help clients fine-tune their browser settings for productivity. And here is the solution on how to make Firefox tab bar behave more like Chrome.
The default minimum tab width in Firefox is 76px. Once they reach that width, they will start sliding horizontally instead of shrinking any further.
The way to get around this is via advanced Firefox customisation.
- In the Firefox address bar, type: about:config
- Click “Accept the Risk and Continue”
- Search for browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
- Change the value from the default 76 to anything you wish, down to 50.
- Restart the Firefox
- There is no point in going for anything below 50, as it is a hardcoded limit in Firefox.
This was sufficient for this particular customer in Oxford. If you want to go even lower, it can be done via setting toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to true and adding chrome/userChrome.css file to Firefox profile folder with the following code:
#tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab {
min-width: 30px !important;
max-width: 200px !important;
}
This allows setting the width below 50px, but it’s not something we would normally recommend. Going that low can hide the tab close button. It can also cause tab bar behaviour issues, such as leaving an empty space in the tab bar after closing a tab.
At AGGIA IT, we help many Oxford and Oxfordshire businesses with exactly these kinds of practical, everyday improvements. Whether it’s browser optimisation, Microsoft 365 support, network issues, or complete IT management, we’re always ready to assist with solutions that make work easier for your team.
If your staff have similar questions or frustrations, we’re here to help.
December 2025
Oxford, Oxfordshire