Other Browsers Need to Steal Opera’s Multitasking Sidebar

I'm a full-screen apps guy on my Mac. I love sending each app to its own workspace and swiping between them to use the one I need. When I'm writing, it helps me focus on the task at hand, and it's not hard to use three and four-finger swipes on my trackpad get to my other productivity apps as I need them. However, messenger apps like WhatsApp and Slack are an exception. I need to be able to check these out at a moment's notice, like when I'm using my browser in full-screen. Luckily, that's where the Opera sidebar comes in. This handy tool is home to social media apps, messengers, and even some streaming services, keeping them from getting lost in separate tabs and letting me easily glance at them when I'm working on something else. It's a lifesaver, and other browsers desperately need to adopt it.

What is the Opera sidebar?

You can think of the Opera sidebar as a way to bookmark crucial services to your Opera browser's left pane. By default, it'll just show icons, but clicking one will open the bookmarked tool in a small popover tab. This is ideal for tasks you want to work on without losing focus on your currently active tab. While I would normally go to a secondary tab to search the web or switch to a different app to reply to texts, this sidebar lets me stay on the current tab, attend to other tasks quickly, and then get right back to work.

How to set up Opera's sidebar

Credit: Pranay Parab

The sidebar is enabled by default, but you should take a moment to tweak it so that your favorite services show up on it. Just click the three-dots button in the bottom-left corner of the Opera window and the sidebar settings pane will open up. Go through the sections for AI services, messengers, and special features. Just click the check box next to the services you wish to use and disable the ones you don't need. After this, your selections will show up in the left pane and you can click them to use them in the sidebar.

You can't add any random app to the sidebar, unfortunately, but there is a reasonably well-populated list for you to choose from. You can pick AI services such as ChatGPT, messengers (WhatsApp, Slack, etc.), or social media sites (Instagram, Bluesky, etc.). The most recent additions are Bluesky, Discord, and Slack, so at least Opera is always adding more options. The sidebar also supports music streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music.

Why I prefer the Opera Sidebar over tabs

I'll admit it: I have a problem of opening too many tabs and then losing track of them. I've been guilty of opening the same website in multiple tabs or sometimes even running the same search query in more than one tab. With the sidebar, I've found a solution to these problems. When I need to reply to a message, I can open the messenger app from the sidebar and dismiss it the moment I'm done. And if I need to access it for longer, I can pin the app, which puts it in a neat split-screen view. This lets me work faster than when I have multiple open tabs, or when I need to switch between apps. 

While a Mac does let you easily place two apps side-by-side, the browser sidebar feature lets me quickly swap new apps in as I need them. This is a level of flexibility that's otherwise hard to find. It's also worth noting that Opera is not the only browser to offer a sidebar, but it is one of the few that runs your browser extensions within the sidebar. If my preferred browsers—Safari and Firefox—were to adopt this feature, I'd even be compelled to delete the official apps for some of these services.

I don't see myself using Opera as my primary browser because I'm attached to the unique privacy benefits in Safari and Firefox, but the company has been doing a few interesting things as of late. It's built a browser that can break your doomscrolling habit and its Aria AI is actually quite useful. Other companies would do well to keep up.