# Chat tabs hidden when setting “workbench.activityBar.location”: “hidden”

**URL:** <https://forum.cursor.com/t/chat-tabs-hidden-when-setting-workbench-activitybar-location-hidden/134774>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Created:** [September 24, 2025, 11:30am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/chat-tabs-hidden-when-setting-workbench-activitybar-location-hidden/134774 "2025-09-24T11:30:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![alarbada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/alarbada/32/55314_2.png) [@alarbada](https://forum.cursor.com/u/alarbada)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 11:30am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/chat-tabs-hidden-when-setting-workbench-activitybar-location-hidden/134774/1 "2025-09-24T11:30:23Z")

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### Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

### Describe the Bug

I did put “workbench.activityBar.location”: “hidden” to hide the primary sidebar icons and now I can’t see the chat tabs.

I think this is a bug, this should not happen

### Steps to Reproduce

Set “workbench.activityBar.location”: “hidden” in the user JSON settings and checkout the cursor chat panel.

### Expected Behavior

That setting should not affect the visibility of the chat tabs.

### Operating System

MacOS

### Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.6.23 (Universal)  
VSCode Version: 1.99.3  
Commit: 9b5f3f4f2368631e3455d37672ca61b6dce85430  
Date: 2025-09-15T21:49:07.231Z  
Electron: 34.5.8  
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210  
Node.js: 20.19.1  
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0  
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

### Additional Information

It’s just very annoying. I do want to hide as much stuff as possible in my screen.

### Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![deanrie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/deanrie/32/1263_2.png) [@deanrie](https://forum.cursor.com/u/deanrie)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 11:22am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/chat-tabs-hidden-when-setting-workbench-activitybar-location-hidden/134774/2 "2025-09-25T11:22:40Z")

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Hey, since these settings hide all icons, chat tabs are affected too because they can appear as icons. Try the same in VS Code and you’ll see the similarity.

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**Author:** ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/system/32/99069_2.png) [@system](https://forum.cursor.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/chat-tabs-hidden-when-setting-workbench-activitybar-location-hidden/134774/3 "2025-10-17T11:23:30Z")

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Closed on October 17, 2025, 11:23am UTC

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