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Middle clicking on tab on macOS should close it #11962
Description
Discussed in #10264
Originally posted by rayhanadev January 10, 2026
It would be great to support middle-click-to-close for tabs on macOS when macos-titlebar-style = tabs is enabled.
This behavior already exists on GTK via PR #1077, and having the same interaction on macOS would be a nice quality-of-life improvement!
Why this is useful:
- Common and intuitive tab behavior across many apps
- Faster than targeting the close button, especially with many tabs
- Improves parity between platforms
Expected behavior:
- Middle-clicking directly on a tab closes that tab
- Uses the same close semantics as the existing close button
Current behavior:
- Middle-clicking a tab does nothing
Notes:
- GTK implements this by handling the middle mouse button on the tab UI
- I’m hoping a similar hook is possible on macOS
- Already exploring an implementation on a fork, happy to contribute upstream! :)
Activity
jcollie commentedon Mar 29, 2026
Feature parity with GTK: #1077
[-]Middle clicking on tab on nacOS should close it[/-][+]Middle clicking on tab on macOS should close it[/+]mitchellh commentedon Mar 29, 2026
This isn’t idiomatic macOS behavior as far as I know. I’d be curious what other macOS apps if any support this?
kicanter commentedon Mar 29, 2026
I think most of the 1P Mac apps like Safari, Finder, Terminal, etc. (pretty much anything you can make a new tab in with
Cmd+t) support middle-click to close tabs.rayhanadev commentedon Mar 29, 2026
Thanks for making this an issue!! I'll have to double-check support in native apps when I get to my desk, but I know middle click to close is supported in browsers.
mitchellh commentedon Mar 29, 2026
Thanks @KieranCanter! I accept this!
macos: add support for middle-click tab close for `macos-titlebar-sty…
nicholaspufal commentedon May 13, 2026
@mitchellh Looks like this feature got reverted? I see it got reverted in #11984
Are there any plans to add it back?
Since switching to Ghostty from iTerm it has been my major gripe. Thanks!
bo2themax commentedon May 13, 2026
As I said in the pr description it's working outside of box, and I just checked with tip version, it's still working on macOS 26.5 and 15.5. Do you mind opening another issue triage discussion for your experience with more detailed info?
nicholaspufal commentedon May 13, 2026
@bo2themax sorry,
tipwas misconfigured on my end.I can confirm it's working with
tip👍