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In Opera One, the New Tab button is at the top of the vertical tab strip by default following a change announced on September 10, 2026. To restore the earlier placement, open Easy Setup and choose Opera’s option for the previous vertical-tab layout. Opera’s announcement does not specify the control’s exact label or a more detailed click path.
Restore the earlier New Tab button position
- Open Easy Setup in Opera One.
- Look for the option to restore the earlier vertical-tab layout and select it. Opera’s September 10, 2026 announcement names Easy Setup but does not publish the setting’s precise label or its location within the panel. Opera’s announcement and accompanying explanation describe the change.
The default places the New Tab button at the top of the strip, and newly opened tabs also appear at the top. Opera says the new-tab ordering exception is when you open a tab inside a Tab Island.
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Turn on Vertical Tabs if you do not see the strip
These routes enable the vertical tab strip; they are not the specific control for changing the New Tab button’s position. Opera’s July 23, 2026 guide lists three ways to enable it:
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- Open Easy Setup and turn on Use vertical tab strip.
- Open
opera://settings, then go to Browser → Tabs.
The guide predates the September position change, so its description of the old button placement should not be taken as the current default. See Opera’s guide to Vertical Tabs.
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What changed, and which position should you choose?
In the earlier layout, the New Tab button followed the last open tab. When the strip filled the available space, Opera’s July guide said the button docked at the bottom. The September change moved the button to the top by default and changed where new tabs appear. The earlier layout remains available through Easy Setup.
Opera’s explanation is that a bottom-docked button could become distant from the address bar when many tabs were open. The company illustrated this with approximate distances of 950 pixels on a 1080p display, 1,300 pixels at 2560×1440, and more than 2,000 pixels on a native 4K display without scaling. Those are Opera’s illustrative figures, not independent measurements. Opera explains its rationale here.
Choose based on where you prefer to reach the control and where you expect new tabs to appear. If you use Tab Islands, keep in mind that Opera says tabs opened inside an island follow an exception to the new top-first ordering.
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Why Opera changed the default
Opera attributed the change to user feedback and a survey of 4,900 Opera One desktop users who had Vertical Tabs enabled in August and September 2026. The company reported that more than 73% of those surveyed said they opened tabs by clicking the New Tab button rather than using a shortcut or another method. This is Opera’s report about its surveyed users, not a representative estimate of all browser users. Opera’s announcement provides the survey context.
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