Tab Tint
CypherPoet252 downloadsTint tab headers with custom colors to tell open notes apart at a glance
- Overview
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An Obsidian plugin that tints tab headers with custom colors, so you can tell open notes apart at a glance.
Why
When you work across several notes at once — researching, cross-referencing, writing — finding the right tab by its title alone is slow. Tab Tint gives each tab a color you assign, so your eyes jump straight to it. What each color means is up to you: you might reserve one for the note you're actively drafting and another for reference material you keep returning to.
A tint means something: each tab remembers which palette slot you gave it. Recolor the slot in settings and every tab wearing it updates — your "reference material" color stays your reference-material color, whatever hex it points at today.
Install
From Obsidian — search for Tab Tint under Settings → Community plugins → Browse, or open its directory listing.
Manually:
- Download
main.js,manifest.json, andstyles.cssfrom the latest release. - Copy them into
<your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/tab-tint/. - Reload Obsidian, then enable Tab Tint under Settings → Community plugins.
Use
Tint a tab — right-click any tab header and pick a color from the bottom of the menu. Each entry shows a swatch of the color it applies.
Clear a tint — right-click a tinted tab and choose Clear tint.
Commands (assignable to hotkeys under Settings → Hotkeys):
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Apply tint 1–N | Tint the current tab with that palette slot (one command per color) |
| Clear tint | Remove the current tab's tint |
| Clear all tints | Remove every tint in the vault |
| Merge duplicate tabs | Close extra tabs showing the same file, keeping the active one |
Merging never happens automatically — it only runs when you invoke the command, so split panes and deliberate duplicates are safe.
Behavior notes:
- Tints follow a file through renames and moves.
- Tinted tabs are pinned automatically (and unpinned when cleared) — toggle Auto-pin tinted tabs off in settings if you'd rather manage pins yourself.
- Tab text switches between dark and light ink based on the tint, so labels stay readable on any color — or override it with Tab text color in settings (always dark, always light, or a custom color).
- Works in popout windows; sidebar panels are deliberately left untouched.
- Renaming a palette color updates its command name immediately.
- Add and remove palette colors in settings (the palette keeps at least one). Removing a color clears — and, with auto-pin on, unpins — any tabs using it; every other tab keeps its color.
- Hotkeys stay bound to their slot number: a hotkey for Apply tint 2 keeps working as colors are added or removed, and goes dormant if slot 2 itself is removed.
Default palette
| Slot | Name | Hex |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berry | #f53d7d |
| 2 | Peach | #eea34f |
| 3 | Mint | #73e8bd |
| 4 | Sky | #7fbff0 |
| 5 | Lavender | #ba74ec |
Every slot's name and color is editable under Settings → Tab Tint, and colors can be added or removed there; Reset palette restores the defaults above.
A note on Obsidian internals
Obsidian has no public API for styling tab headers, so Tab Tint (like every tab-styling plugin) reads two undocumented internals. These reads are quarantined in tabColors.ts behind null-safe accessors: if a future Obsidian update renames them, tints silently stop applying rather than anything crashing. If that happens, update the plugin — or open an issue and it'll be a small fix.