With the left sidebar using the default horizontal icon layout, clicking the icon for a sidebar tab that is already open causes the entire left sidebar to fully close. This happens every time the active tab’s icon is clicked; it should not collapse the sidebar. (Behavior differs from VS Code, where re-clicking the active icon does not close the sidebar.)
Steps to Reproduce
Use the default left menu with horizontal icons.
Click an icon to open its sidebar tab.
While that tab is active, click the same icon again.
Observe that the entire left sidebar collapses/ closes.
Expected Behavior
Clicking the icon of an already-open sidebar tab should not close the sidebar. The click should either do nothing or refocus the existing tab, but must not collapse the left menu (consistent with VS Code behavior).
Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known behavior difference between the horizontal and vertical Activity Bar layouts.
In the horizontal layout (the default in Cursor), clicking the active icon shows a tooltip instead of toggling. In the vertical layout, it works like in VS Code.
Workaround: switch to the vertical layout:
"workbench.activityBar.orientation": "vertical"
This brings back the usual behavior where clicking the active icon closes the sidebar.
Also, in standard VS Code, clicking the active icon closes the sidebar too. It’s a toggle by design, so you might have had some custom setting there.
Your reply is incorrect and appears to be an AI-generated template.
I tested this in the latest VS Code: with the Activity Bar in a horizontal/top position I opened the Explorer panel, then clicked the Explorer icon again while it was already open — the sidebar stayed open and nothing happened. That is the expected behavior for a horizontal/top Activity Bar in VS Code.
Cursor’s horizontal left sidebar should behave the same: re-clicking an already-open sidebar icon must not collapse the entire left menu. Please prioritize a proper fix and provide a substantive, actionable update rather than an AI-style canned response.
@bli2arbm I wanted to report this bug as well. To me, it’s another UX bug (there are plenty of them in Cursor), and it’s very annoying. This bug appeared in one of the recent updates. Before that, there was a notification/alert.
When I need, for example, to open a search or git view in the sidebar, I mechanically press the button even if the view is already open. The best behavior would be to do nothing – you want to open this view, and here it is. In VS Code, the click minimizes the sidebar (not the best UX decision in my opinion), but it’s still better than the current behavior in Cursor.
The sidebar consisting of Explore Menu, Search Menu etc. is collapsing when you click on the menu icon up top when the tab associated to the icon is already open. This issue happens on all sidebar menu icons.
Steps to Reproduce
Click on Explore Menu icon in Sidebar
After the menu switches to Explore, click the Explore menu icon again
Expected Behavior
The sidebar should not collapse even if you click on an icon for which its associated tab is already open.