Hotkey setup for VSCode's nextEditor cycles tabs across all split groups

2026-09-16 (2d ago)1 views

#vscode#keybindings#productivity

I wanted Cmd+[ and Cmd+] to cycle through every open tab, across all split editor columns in VSCode. Turns out there are three different commands and only one of them actually does what I wanted.

The three commands and what they actually do

workbench.action.focusNextGroup / focusPreviousGroup

Moves focus between split groups (columns or rows), not tabs. If you have two split columns with 5 tabs each, this just jumps your cursor between the two columns.

workbench.action.nextEditorInGroup / previousEditorInGroup

Cycles through tabs within the currently focused group only. Hits the last tab and stops, doesn't wrap into the next group.

workbench.action.nextEditor / workbench.action.previousEditor

This one cycles through every open editor tab across every group in positional order. Last tab of group 1 wraps into the first tab of group 2.

This is the one we want.

The keybindings

Cmd+[ and Cmd+] default to outdent/indent lines in the editor, so those need to be explicitly unbound too, otherwise VSCode will fire both actions:

{
    "key": "cmd+[",
    "command": "workbench.action.previousEditor"
},
{
    "key": "cmd+]",
    "command": "workbench.action.nextEditor"
},
{
    "key": "cmd+[",
    "command": "-editor.action.outdentLines",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && !editorReadonly"
},
{
    "key": "cmd+]",
    "command": "-editor.action.indentLines",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && !editorReadonly"
}

Add these to keybindings.json (Cmd+Shift+P → "Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON)"). VSCode picks up the file live — no restart needed.