There’s a persistent blank vertical gap (the empty editor area) between the file explorer sidebar and the chat panel when no files are open. This was not present in the previous Cursor version — it appeared after an update around early April 2026.
| workbench.unifiedSidebar.size | 300 |
settings.json (minimal — only 2 entries)
{
"window.commandCenter": true,
"workbench.colorTheme": "Cursor Dark High Contrast"
}
No workspace-level .vscode/settings.json exists.
Expected behavior
When no files are open, the chat panel and file explorer should fill the available space without a dead editor area gap in the middle — like the previous version did.
The gap is the empty editor area sitting between the left sidebar (file explorer) and the right sidebar (chat/agent panel). It shows the “New Agent / Show Terminal / Search Files” watermark shortcuts but takes up significant screen space for no reason.
Environment
OS: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.2.0)
Cursor version: Latest as of April 4, 2026 (updated from the in-app banner today — issue persists)
Layout mode: Agent (unified app layout, forced by migration)
What I’ve tried (none of these fixed it)
Cmd+Option+U (toggle unified sidebar) — no effect
View: Reset Editor Group Sizes — no effect
View: Reset View Locations — no effect
View: Toggle Centered Layout — was already off, toggling didn’t help
View: Toggle Zen Mode — no effect
Reverted global state migration in ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb:
Set cursor/migrateEditorMode.forceUnified from true to false
Set cursor/unifiedAppLayout from agent to classic
Result: Cursor overwrites these values on launch, re-applying the migration
Deleted workspace-specific state.vscdb at ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/<id>/state.vscdb (plus WAL and SHM journal files)
Result: Gap still present. Lost chat history for nothing. Restored from backup.
Updated Cursor to the latest version via the “Install Now” banner — gap still present.
Global state layout entries (from globalStorage/state.vscdb)
Key
Value
cursor/agentLayout.sidebarLocation
right
cursor/agentLayout.sidebarLocationAgentOverride
right
cursor/globalLayoutState
{"sidebarLocation":"right"}
cursor/migrateEditorMode.forceUnified
true
cursor/unifiedAppLayout
agent
workbench.auxiliaryBar.size
1294
workbench.sideBar.size
214
Steps to Reproduce
Open any workspace/project in Cursor
Close all open editor tabs so no files are open
Observe the layout: there is a blank editor area (gap) between the file explorer sidebar (left) and the chat panel (right)
This gap shows the watermark shortcuts (New Agent, Show Terminal, etc.) but serves no purpose and wastes screen space
This was not present in the previous Cursor version — appeared after updating
Hey, this isn’t a bug. It’s expected behavior in the new Agent layout. The editor area is always visible by default, even when there are no files open.
Fix: go to Cursor Settings > General and turn on Auto-hide editor when empty. This will automatically hide the editor area when all tabs are closed, so chat and the sidebar take up the full space like you want.
Also, Cmd+Option+E is a quick toggle for the editor area if you ever need to hide or show it manually.
About state.vscdb, the move to the unified layout is forced, so your changes get overwritten on every startup. That’s by design, you don’t need to change anything there.
Thanks for the reply. I tried everything you suggested — none of it works.
What I did
“Auto-hide editor when empty” ‚Äî turned ON in Cursor Settings > General. Verified it’s enabled: cursor/autoHideEditorWhenEmpty: true in the global state DB.
“View: Toggle Editor Area Visibility” ‚Äî ran from the command palette. No visible change.
Cmd+Option+E — pressed it multiple times. No effect.
Proof it’s not working
I inspected the state databases directly. After toggling, the workspace state shows:
cursor/agentLayout.editorVisible: false
workbench.editor.hidden: true
cursor/agentLayout.editorWidth: 0
All three say the editor should be hidden ‚Äî but it’s still rendered on screen, showing the watermark shortcuts (New Agent, Show Terminal, etc.) and taking up space between the file explorer and the chat panel.
Full list of everything tried (before your reply)
Cmd+Option+U (toggle unified sidebar) — no effect
View: Reset Editor Group Sizes — no effect
View: Reset View Locations — no effect
View: Toggle Centered Layout — no effect
View: Toggle Zen Mode — no effect
Reverted cursor/migrateEditorMode.forceUnified to false and cursor/unifiedAppLayout to classic in global state DB — Cursor overwrites both on launch
Deleted the workspace-specific state.vscdb (plus WAL/SHM files) — gap still present after fresh recreate
Updated Cursor to latest version via “Install Now” banner ‚Äî gap still present
When no files are open, the editor area should actually hide (as the setting promises), so the file explorer and chat panel fill the full width with no dead space in between.
Screenshots attached showing the gap (marked with X) vs no gap.
Hey, I can see the screenshots and the issue makes sense. If the state DB correctly shows editorVisible: false and editor.hidden: true, but the UI still renders the editor area, that looks like a bug.
I shared this with the team. There’s no timeline yet, but your report and detailed diagnostics help us prioritize it.
A couple things I’d like to check for more context:
Try starting Cursor with a clean extensions profile by running cursor --disable-extensions in Terminal. Does the issue still happen?
What exact build are you on? Go to Help > About.
If the gap goes away with --disable-extensions, it likely means an extension is conflicting with the layout. If not, that confirms it’s on our side.
cursor --disable-extensions — gap is still there. Not an extension conflict.
Build info (Help > About):
Version: 3.0.16
Commit: 475871d112608994deb2e3065dfb7c6b0baa0c50
Date: 2026-04-09
Quality: stable
OS: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.2.0)
So it’s on Cursor’s side. The state DB correctly shows editorVisible: false and editor.hidden: true, but the UI still renders the editor area. The auto-hide setting and the toggle command have no effect in agent layout mode.
Let me know if there’s anything else I can test or if there’s an internal ticket I can track.
