# How to stop Firefox combining pages in taskbar?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 16, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907 "2007-10-16T15:25:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907/1 "2007-10-16T15:25:42Z")

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Windows XP.

When I have multiple Firefox sessions open, and the taskbar starts to get crowded, Firefox takes it upon itself to combine all the sessions into a single button on the taskbar with the label “3 Firefox” or whatever the number of sessions is.

This is fairly recent behavior. It used to keep each session as a separate button, but reduce the size. Is there a setting somewhere that I can turn this off?

And don’t tell me to use tabs in Firefox. I’ve tried that, and I don’t like it.

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**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907/2 "2007-10-16T15:29:27Z")

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Right click on the task bar and select ‘Properties’.  
Make sure that ‘Group Similar Taskbar Buttons’ is unchecked.  
\

That should do it.

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**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907/3 "2007-10-16T15:34:25Z")

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What he said. This isn’t a Firefox thing, but a Windows thing.

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**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907/4 "2007-10-16T15:36:26Z")

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It’s a Windows thing, not a Firefox thing.

Also, TweakUI has some customizations for this, so you can specify which windows are grouped.  
[http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx)

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907/5 "2007-10-16T15:48:44Z")

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[QUOTE=FatBaldGuy]  
And don’t tell me to use tabs in Firefox. I’ve tried that, and I don’t like it.  
[/QUOTE]  
Try again.

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**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-stop-firefox-combining-pages-in-taskbar/422907/6 "2007-10-16T16:17:05Z")

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Thanks, everyone. I guess it helps to look in the right place.