Tabs and panels in Tana Desktop: stay in the flow and find what you need

What are tabs in Tana?

Tabs work just like they do in your browser:
You can open multiple notes, searches, people pages, or projects - each in its own tab, all within a single window.

This makes it easy to:

• Keep your daily journal, meeting notes, and project board open together.
• Stay in the flow by keeping your view with panels in one tab, while switching to a meeting in another tab.
• Work across multiple teams, spaces, or workflows in parallel.

Tabs are available now in the Tana Desktop app.

How panels work within tabs

Tana already supported panels (split views), and these will continue to work as before inside a tab.

Here’s how the two interact:

• Tabs: Let you keep multiple views open in a single window and switch between them.
• Panels: Let you view notes side-by-side within a tab
• You can open one or more new panels inside a tab

This means you can:

• Keep a transcription open while taking manual notes in a meeting
• Compare two meeting notes side-by-side
• Write while referencing another node
• Revise a project plan while making notes in a meeting

Keyboard shortcuts

We’ve aligned tab behavior with familiar patterns used in browsers and IDEs, so it just works:

• Cmd/Ctrl + Click: Open in new tab
• Shift + Click: Open in new panel
• Cmd/Ctrl + T: Open a new tab
• Cmd/Ctrl + W: Close current tab
• Ctrl + Tab: Switch between tabs

See the full list of keyboard shortcuts →

Switch without losing your views

The biggest benefit of tabs? You can stay in flow.

No more:

• Opening the same search over and over
• Losing your place during meeting notes
• Jumping between views with a single back button

With tabs and panels, your context stays put - so you can work how your brain works.

Use cases we love

• Daily plan: Plan your day on the Today page, and keep it open to check items off and find the next task during the day.
• People leads: Prep for 1:1s in one panel while viewing the previous meeting or someone's profile in another
• Project managers: Open team notes, tasks, and strategy docs across tabs
• Content managers: Review multiple drafts quickly by opening them in tabs
• Researchers & writers: Write in one tab, reference sources in another, search in a third

Try it now

Tabs are enabled by default in the Tana Desktop app (no action needed).
If you haven’t yet, download the app and start working across tabs like a pro.