Auto-collapse

Automatically collapse other tab groups when you expand one — keep your workspace focused without manual tidying.

Overview #

Auto-collapse watches for tab group expansions and collapses competing groups automatically. The feature ships in two tiers: a same-window mode available to all users and a cross-window mode for Premium subscribers.

Both settings are off by default. You must opt in via Settings → TAB GROUPS. Each toggle starts disabled; you must turn it on manually.

The settings are global toggles — they apply across all profiles and all windows. There is no profile-specific auto-collapse override.

How it works #

When auto-collapse is enabled, Takt listens for tabGroups.onUpdated events. Whenever a group transitions to expanded (collapsed: false) and it is the only expanded group in its window, Takt collapses all other groups in the same window. The predicate is stateless — no suppression flag is stored. This means:

• Manual re-expand still works. Using the Alt + Shift + E expand-all shortcut (or the Expand All button) re-expands all groups normally. Auto-collapse does not suppress the expand-all command.
• No feedback loop. Collapsing groups does not itself trigger further collapse events.

Cross-window auto-collapse is triggered by tabs.onActivated events instead. When you switch to a tab in window A, Takt collapses all tab groups in every other open window after a debounce of 300 ms (DEBOUNCE_MS = 300 in src/shared/constants.js). The debounce prevents thrashing when switching tabs in quick succession.

Free vs Premium #

Premium Auto-collapse has two independent toggles, each controlling a different scope.

Enable same-window auto-collapse in Settings → TAB GROUPS → "Auto-collapse other groups when one expands".

Enable cross-window auto-collapse in Settings → TAB GROUPS → "Also collapse groups in other windows" (this toggle is disabled and labelled Premium for free users).

The two settings are independent. A Premium subscriber with only same-window enabled gets same-window behavior only — enabling the Premium toggle is a separate opt-in.

Edge cases and gotchas #

• Both toggles default to off. Neither autoCollapseEnabled nor crossWindowAutoCollapseEnabled starts on. You must enable each in Settings before auto-collapse does anything.
• 300 ms debounce on cross-window. Brief tab-switches (under 300 ms) do not trigger cross-window collapse. This prevents a quick tab-select from collapsing all your groups in other windows before you settle on a tab.
• Manual expand still works. After auto-collapse closes your other groups, you can re-expand them individually or use the expand-all shortcut (Alt + Shift + E). The stateless predicate means there is no suppression — expand-all runs unconditionally.
• Global setting, not profile-specific. The auto-collapse toggles apply globally across all profiles. Switching to a different Takt profile does not change whether auto-collapse is active.
• Stateless predicate. Takt does not store a suppression flag to prevent a group from being re-collapsed. If you expand a group and another group is already open, auto-collapse fires every time.