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, except the group that holds the window's active tab. 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 the tab groups in every other open window, except the group that holds each window's active tab, after a debounce of 300 ms (DEBOUNCE_MS = 300 in src/shared/constants.js). The debounce prevents thrashing when switching tabs in quick succession.

Switching focus between Chrome windows also triggers cross-window auto-collapse. When a window receives focus, the active tab in that window causes tabs.onActivated to fire, triggering the same cross-window collapse as clicking a tab. The focused window's active tab group expands and groups in other windows collapse, except the group that holds each of those windows' active tab. Requires the cross-window auto-collapse setting to be on (Premium). The same 300 ms debounce applies — brief window switches do not trigger collapse.

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.