How do I keep IntelliJ from closing my Editor Tabs automatically?

Question

When opening more than 10 Editor Tabs, IntelliJ automatically closes my least used Tab each time I open a new Tab.

How can I increase this limit?

More recent IntelliJ settings are accessed differently than older versions.

Possible duplicate of [How can I stop RubyMine/IntelliJ from closing my buffers?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25271631/how-can-i-stop-rubymine-intellij-from-closing-my-buffers) — Amos M. Carpenter, May 19 '16 at 03:10
Similar but I doubt anyone would find it compared to this question. — Stephane Grenier, Oct 25 '19 at 02:39
I was wondering, WHEN and why i closed some files. IntelliJ was closing stuff without asking. Stupid features sold as smart ones... — fresko, Feb 19 '20 at 13:52

score 258 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 19 '18 at 13:12

258

Change the Tab Limit under the Tab Closing Policy settings.

Open your IntelliJ settings: Select File -> Settings -> Editor -> General -> Editor Tabs.

Look for Tab Closing Policy -> Tab Limit and change the value to a higher integer.

You can also select to either close non-modified files first or less frequently used files first once your tab limit has been reached.

edited Apr 19 '18 at 13:12

Xavier Guihot

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answered Mar 01 '16 at 20:03

Heather92065

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in Mac os, it's under Preferences -> Editor – Ali Faradjpour Jan 22 '19 at 14:50
Same will be applied to Android Studio for Mac, in version 3.3.1, select Preferences >Editor >Editor Tabs > Closing Policy section > Tab limit. – MrDEV Feb 12 '19 at 11:27
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What a silly feature this is !! – A Nice Guy Feb 04 '22 at 06:15

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '21 at 22:29

If you need more than 100 tabs:

By default, the maximum number of open tabs that you can allow is limited to 100. If you want to increase that limit, press Ctrl+Shift+A or choose Help | Find Action from the main menu. In the popup that opens, start typing Registry, select the corresponding item and press Enter. In the Registry dialog, search for the ide.max.editor.tabs key and change its value.

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 12 '21 at 11:54

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For recent versions on Mac, Configure Editor tabs is under

In the Editor --> General --> Editor Tabs, Under Closing Policy, change the Tab limit as per your requirement

answered Oct 12 '21 at 11:54

venkata

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 02 '19 at 21:22

Adding an answer to help anyone else with a similar problem. OSX+Catalina on JetBrains/PyCharm was having closing all tabs when I lost focus on the application. When I came back the "Synchronization" action happened (top right circle arrow spins) and all windows are reset (many closed as a result). My fix was to disable in the settings. Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Disable everything under the "Synchronization" section. You may need to seek out other "sync" options in settings.

How do I keep IntelliJ from closing my Editor Tabs automatically?

4 Answers4

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