Obsidian has two sidebars, left and right. On desktop and larger tablets, the left sidebar includes the [[Ribbon]]. On mobile and smaller tablets, the sidebars are [[#Open hidden sidebars|collapsed by default]]. ## Open hidden sidebars On desktop and larger tablets: open a collapsed sidebar by clicking the left expand ( ![[obsidian-icon-side-bar-left.svg#icon]] ) or right expand ( ![[obsidian-icon-side-bar-right.svg#icon]] ). On mobile and smaller tablets: swipe left or right, click the left expand ( ![[obsidian-icon-side-bar-left.svg#icon]] ), or long-press the note menu ( ![[lucide-ellipsis-vertical.svg#icon]] ). ## Tabs By default, plugins will only create new tabs instead of new [[#Tab groups]]. You can switch between tabs by clicking on the icon. A tooltip will also appear to help you identify tabs. In each pane, you can only see one tab at any given moment. Some actions will automatically bring a tab into view, for example when you click on a tag. ### Close tabs Some tabs can be closed via the right click menu, but some can't. If you don’t want to see a tab that can't be closed, consider disabling the relevant plugin or collapsing the sidebar by clicking on the Arrow icon. ### Rearrange tabs You can drag and drop the tab icons to rearrange them within a group of tabs. ## Tab groups You can have multiple tab groups in the sidebar. ### Create tab groups To get a new tab group, drag the icon of a tab above or below a current tab group. The highlighted area will indicate where the new tab group will be created. ### Close tab groups To close a tab group, you can [[#Close tabs|close all tabs in it]], or drag all tabs in it by their icons and drop them into existing tab groups. When only the tab area of a tab group is highlighted, the tab being dragged will be dropped into that tab group to merge with other tabs in that group.