How can I prevent VS Code from replacing a newly opened, unmodified (preview) tab with a subsequently opened one?

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In Visual Studio Code (VS Code), by default, when you open a file in a new tab, it replaces the previously opened tab if the file is in preview mode and hasn't been modified. If you want to prevent this behavior and keep multiple preview tabs open without them being automatically replaced, you can configure VS Code to do so. Here's how:

  1. Open VS Code.

  2. Go to File > Preferences > Settings.

  3. In the settings search bar, type "preview". This should filter the settings related to file preview behavior.

  4. Find the setting called "Editor: Preview Tab Closing". By default, it's set to "right".

    • "right": Automatically close the preview tab to the right when opening a new one.
    • "left": Automatically close the preview tab to the left when opening a new one.
    • "always": Always close the previous preview tab when opening a new one.
    • "off": Disable automatic closing of preview tabs.

  5. To prevent VS Code from automatically closing preview tabs, set "Editor: Preview Tab Closing" to "off".

  6. You can also set this configuration at the workspace level by clicking the "Edit in settings.json" link in the settings UI and adding the following line to your settings.json file:

    json
  1. "editor.previewTabClosing": "off"

  2. Save the settings file.

Now, when you open a file in preview mode, it won't automatically close any previously opened preview tabs, allowing you to keep multiple preview tabs open simultaneously.

Here's an example:

Suppose you have two files, file1.txt and file2.txt. If you open file1.txt in a preview tab and then open file2.txt in a preview tab, file1.txt will remain open as a preview tab alongside file2.txt. Without changing this setting, file1.txt would have been automatically replaced by file2.txt when opened.

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