How to Merge Finder Windows Into Tabs, or Move a Tab to a New Window

The short answer: in the Finder, choose Window › Merge All Windows. Every Finder window you have open becomes a tab of a single window. To go the other way, drag a tab out of the tab bar and let go away from it: the tab becomes a window of its own.

Below are both moves step by step, what Finder tabs can't do, and how Folia Files handles tabs and windows when each tab holds several folders at once.

Merge all Finder windows into tabs

1. Click any Finder window, so that the Finder is the app in front.
2. Open the Window menu and choose Merge All Windows.
3. Your Finder windows are now tabs of one window. Click a tab to show its folder, or drag tabs sideways to change their order.

The command combines every Finder window at once; it doesn't ask which ones.

Keep the tab bar in sight

A Finder window with a single tab hides its tab bar. Choose View › Show Tab Bar to keep it visible, with a + button at its right end for a new tab. And the next time you need another folder, press ⌘T for a new tab rather than ⌘N for a new window: new windows are how the pile starts.

Move a Finder tab to its own window

Drag the tab out of the tab bar and let go away from it: the tab leaves the bar and becomes a separate window, still showing the same folder. Window › Move Tab to New Window does the same for the tab in front.

You need this whenever you want two folders on screen at the same time. A Finder window shows one folder at a time, so seeing two means two windows, side by side.

What Finder tabs can't do

• One folder per tab. Once windows are merged, you see one folder at a time; to compare two, you split them apart again.
• All or nothing. Merge All Windows takes every Finder window; the menu has no command to merge just two of them.
• Nothing to keep. macOS can reopen Finder windows when you log back in, but you can't save a window and its tabs under a name to bring back next week.

Tabs and windows in Folia Files

Folia Files is a file manager for Mac in which a tab isn't a single folder: it holds a layout of panes, several folders side by side, each in its own view (the Panes, tabs and scenes page shows it all). A tab is named after its active pane: “Invoices +2” means the Invoices pane and two others.

So when a tab changes windows, a whole working layout goes with it, and it can go either way: out into a window of its own, or into another window.

Drag a tab out to make a new window

1. Press on a tab and drag it up or down, away from the tab bar, or straight out of the window.
2. Let go where no Folia Files window is: on the desktop, over another app, or over the tab's own window, away from its bar.
3. A new window opens right there, the same size as the one the tab came from, with the tab in it. Drop it on your second display, and that's where the window opens.

Without dragging: right-click the tab and choose Move to New Window; the new window appears slightly below and to the right of the first one. To cancel a drag, press esc before you let go: the tab stays where it was.

Drop a tab on another window to join its tabs

Drag a tab over another Folia Files window:

• On its tab bar, a line shows where the tab will land among the others.
• Anywhere else on that window, over its panes or its sidebar, the tab area is outlined, and the tab goes after the existing tabs.

From the menu: right-click the tab, choose Move to Window, then the window by name.

To merge two windows, bring the tabs of one into the other. The last tab of a window can go too: the window it leaves then closes on its own. There's no single “merge everything” command; you decide which tab goes where. A window's only tab doesn't make a new window, though: dropped anywhere else, it slides back to its bar.

Everything in the tab goes with it

The tab isn't rebuilt from a saved copy: it moves as it is. Each pane keeps its folder and its view, Back and Forward keep their history, and selections and scroll positions stay put. A terminal open under a pane keeps running, even in the middle of a command (the built-in terminal is in the website edition). Tool tabs, such as Batch Rename, stay in the window that opened them.

Your windows come back at the next launch

With Settings › General › Startup › Restore panes at launch turned on (it is by default), Folia Files remembers every window. Quit with three windows open, and the next launch brings all three back, each with its tabs and panes, where it was on the screen.

A window you close while others stay open leaves the session. To keep one for later, save it first with Window › Workspaces › Save Workspace…: its tabs with their panes, folders and views, plus the window's size and place. It reopens from the same menu, in the current window or in a new one. To save a single tab, use a scene: How to View Two Folders Side by Side on a Mac (and Reopen Them) explains scenes and workspaces step by step.

Shortcuts for tabs in Folia Files

• ⌘T: new tab; ⌘N: new window.
• ⇧⌘] and ⇧⌘[ (Tabs › Next Tab and Previous Tab); ⌥⌘1 to ⌥⌘9: a tab by its position (⌥⌘9 is the last one).
• ⌥⌘W closes the tab and ⇧⌘W the window; ⌘W closes the active pane, and the tab only when that pane was its last.
• Double-click a tab to rename it, double-click the empty part of the bar for a new tab, middle-click a tab to close it.
• The tab bar shows even when a window has a single tab, so there's always a tab to grab. Settings › General › Presence › Always show the tab bar turns that off; the bar still appears when you drag a tab over that window.

Which one to use

• The Finder: Merge All Windows when windows pile up, and drag a tab out when you need two folders on screen at once.
• Folia Files: one tab per job, with its folders side by side, moved to another window or display when you need two jobs in view, and every window back in place the next day.

Folia Files has a 7-day free trial with every feature, so you can try all of this on your own folders.