Switch has been quiet for a while. The extension kept working, the sidebar kept stacking tabs, but not much moved. That changed this year. Switch 5 is the result: a rebuilt sidebar, a set of features for staying on task rather than just staying organised, and a blog that's back in use. Here's what changed.
A new look
The sidebar has been redrawn from the ground up. Cleaner rows, a consistent icon set, and proper light, dark and follow-your-system themes. You can put the sidebar on either side of the window, let it hide until you need it, and change any shortcut, all from the Account & Settings menu, which now gathers everything that used to be scattered across the extension.
If you have used Switch for years, the first thing you will notice is that it looks like it belongs in a 2026 browser. The second is that everything you relied on is still where it was: Favourites in the dock, Spaces at the top, search a keystroke away.
Focus
Focus is new. Pick the sites that pull you away, choose how long to pause them, and they stay paused. It's free for everyone, up to two sites.
With Pro, Focus runs on a schedule, so social media is off between nine and twelve every weekday without you starting anything. Each site can keep its own hours, and strict mode stops you ending a session early when you're tempted. It's the feature we most wanted for ourselves, and the one that made the Time Saved counter interesting.
Inactive Tabs and Auto-tidy
Inactive Tabs is a one-click close for every tab you haven't touched in an hour. Free, and the quickest way to recover a tab strip after a research session.
Auto-tidy, in Pro, does the same thing on its own. Set a time, and idle tabs and windows close after it, or move into a Space so nothing is lost. That's an Inactive Tabs Space by default, or any Space you pick. We wrote a longer guide on letting the browser tidy itself if you want the routine.
Time Saved
Switch now keeps a running count of the minutes it hands back to you: quicker tab switching, tabs you didn't have to hunt for, distractions Focus kept away. It lives in the account menu and it stays on your device. It's an estimate, and we say so, but it's a number where before there was only a vague feeling that the sidebar helps.
Settings Sync
For Pro users, Focus, Auto-tidy and the order of your Spaces now follow you to every device and browser you sign into. Set up your schedule once on the work laptop and it's there on the home machine.
Still here, and better
- Tab Stacking groups open tabs by web app, so a dozen docs tabs are one row.
- Spaces hold a project's tabs and reopen them where you left them. Two are free; Pro removes the cap.
- Shared Spaces send a whole Space as one link. The recipient doesn't need Switch.
- Power Search and Tab Flow in Pro find any tab, Favourite or history item from the keyboard, and step back through recent tabs in the order you used them.
What stays free
The sidebar, Tab Stacking, two Spaces, two Favourites, tab search, basic shortcuts, Focus, Inactive Tabs and Time Saved. Nothing that was free before has moved behind Pro.
Pro is $3.29 a month, or $29.99 a year, with a seven-day free trial. The full list is on the pricing section.
What is next
The blog is back, and the plan is to use it: practical guides on tabs, focus and the growing pile of AI tools in every browser, with the occasional release note like this one. If something in Switch 5 broke for you, or you want something it doesn't do, tell us. We aren't planning to go quiet again.
Existing users get the update automatically. New here? Install Switch for free.