Vivaldi Keyboard Shortcuts
Vivaldi is built by former Opera developers for users who found mainstream browsers too simplified, and its shortcut set reflects that directly — beyond the standard Chromium-derived tab and window bindings shared with Chrome and Edge, Vivaldi adds a genuinely large layer of shortcuts for features unique to it, like tab stacking, tiling multiple tabs side by side, and toggling its built-in side panels for notes, bookmarks, and downloads. Nearly everything in Vivaldi is also independently rebindable through its settings, so the defaults below reflect out-of-the-box behavior rather than a fixed, unchangeable scheme the way some competitors' shortcuts are. Because the tiling and stacking shortcuts are Vivaldi-specific inventions rather than inherited Chromium behavior, they're the bindings most worth checking in Settings > Keyboard first if you're coming from Chrome and expect them to already exist. This reference is aimed at users who've already decided Vivaldi's power-user feature set is worth the switch and now want to actually use those features from the keyboard rather than hunting through right-click menus every time — tab stacking and the Notes panel in particular are the two features that separate Vivaldi's daily workflow most sharply from a stock Chrome session, so they're worth prioritizing over the shared Chromium basics you likely already know.
Tabs Stacking
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| New tab | Ctrl+T | Cmd+T | Opens a new blank tab, identical in behavior to the same shortcut in Chrome or Edge. |
| Stack tab onto adjacent tab | Drag tab onto another, or Ctrl+Alt+Right/Left to cycle stack | Drag, or Cmd+Option+Right/Left | Groups two or more tabs into a single visual stack occupying one tab-bar slot, a Vivaldi-distinctive feature for managing large numbers of open tabs without a cluttered tab bar. |
| Tile all tabs in current stack | Right-click stack > Tile, no default single key | Same | Displays every tab within a stack simultaneously in a split-screen tiled layout within one window, letting you view several pages side by side without separate windows. |
| Close current tab | Ctrl+W | Cmd+W | Closes the active tab; if it's the last tab in a stack, the entire stack closes with it. |
| Reopen last closed tab | Ctrl+Shift+T | Cmd+Shift+T | Brings back whichever tab closed most recently, browsing history for that tab included, and pressing it again keeps reopening further back through your recently closed tabs one at a time. |
| Move tab to a new window | Drag tab out of the tab bar, no dedicated default key | Same | Pops the current tab out into its own standalone window, breaking it out of any stack it belonged to, useful when you want to view one page side by side with another application rather than another Vivaldi tab. |
| Mute audio on current tab | Right-click tab > Mute, no default key | Same | Silences audio playing from a specific tab without pausing its playback or closing it, useful for quieting an autoplaying video in a background tab you're not currently watching without hunting it down and clicking pause manually. |
Panels
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toggle side panel | Ctrl+. | Cmd+. | Shows or hides Vivaldi's side panel bar, which houses Bookmarks, Notes, Downloads, History, and any web panels pinned there, a persistent feature Chrome and Edge don't offer natively. |
| Open Notes panel | No default — click panel icon | Same | Opens Vivaldi's built-in Notes feature in the side panel, letting you jot text notes with optional screenshots and page-URL attachments without a separate app, unique among mainstream browsers. |
| Open Bookmarks panel | No default — click panel icon | Same | Opens the Bookmarks panel directly in the side bar rather than a separate bookmarks manager tab, letting you drag bookmarks or folders while still viewing the current page underneath. |
| Add current page as a Web Panel | Right-click tab > Add to Panel, no dedicated key | Same | Pins a live, persistent mini-browser view of a specific site (like a chat app or calendar) into the side panel bar, keeping it accessible in a narrow always-available column without occupying a full tab. |
| Open Downloads panel | No default — click panel icon | Same | Opens the Downloads panel in the side bar for reviewing recent downloads without leaving the current page, part of the same persistent panel column that also houses Notes and Bookmarks. |
Navigation
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Quick Commands | F2 or Ctrl+E | F2 or Cmd+E | Brings up a fuzzy-search box covering open tabs, bookmarks, settings pages, and browser commands all at once — a feature most browsers don't offer at all, borrowed conceptually from the command palettes found in code editors. |
| Focus address bar | Ctrl+L or F6 | Cmd+L | Moves cursor focus to the address bar for typing a URL or search query, standard across Chromium-based browsers. |
| Cycle to next tab | Ctrl+Tab | Ctrl+Tab | Moves forward through open tabs in order; note Mac keeps Ctrl (not Cmd) for this one specific binding, an exception to Vivaldi's usual Cmd-for-Mac pattern inherited from the underlying Chromium engine. |
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the actual difference between stacking and tiling tabs?
Stacking groups multiple tabs into a single tab-bar slot that you switch between one at a time, primarily a tab-bar organization tool for reducing clutter. Tiling takes tabs already in a stack and displays them simultaneously side by side in a split view within the same window, which is a viewing feature rather than an organizational one — the two are related but solve different problems.
On Mac, why does switching tabs with Ctrl+Tab keep the Ctrl key instead of swapping in Cmd?
This is inherited behavior from the Chromium engine Vivaldi is built on, where Ctrl+Tab for cycling tabs is a long-standing convention kept consistent across platforms in most Chromium browsers, rather than being remapped to Cmd+Tab, which on Mac is reserved at the OS level for switching between entire applications.
Can I actually change any of these default shortcuts?
Yes — Vivaldi is unusually permissive here compared to most browsers, exposing a full keyboard shortcut editor in Settings > Keyboard where nearly every command, including many without a default binding at all, can be assigned or reassigned freely.
What's the difference between a Web Panel and just pinning a regular tab?
A pinned tab still lives in the main tab bar and competes for space with your other open tabs, whereas a Web Panel lives permanently in the narrow side panel column, completely separate from the tab bar, and stays accessible with a single click regardless of how many regular tabs or stacks you currently have open — it's meant for something you want glanceable at all times, like a chat app, not something you're actively browsing.
If I close a stacked tab, do I lose the whole stack's history?
No — closing an individual tab within a stack only closes that one tab; the rest of the stack remains open and functional. Reopening the last closed tab (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T) restores that specific tab, and if it was the only one in its stack when closed, it typically reopens back into a standalone tab rather than automatically recreating the original stack structure.
Can I silence a noisy background tab without closing it?
Yes — right-clicking a tab and choosing Mute silences its audio output entirely while leaving whatever's playing running in the background, which is faster than switching to that tab and finding its own pause control, especially useful when several tabs are open and you're not sure which one is making noise.