workbench.action.toggleMaximizedPanel opens the chat panel

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

If you maximize the panel (i.e your maximized terminal), it always opens the fully maximized Chat pane upon toggling it closed.

This completely covers the screen and I’m unable to jump back and forth between code and the maximized terminal. This is pretty bad for my workflow. It happens whether the chat pane is open or not.

Steps to Reproduce

Open cursor,
Maximize the panel,
Close the panel,
New Chat takes up screen

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.21.16 (user setup)
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: 8ae78e8eee1e63479c7e0504b664bc0a80c68000
Date: 2026-09-19T06:43:22.276Z
Layout: IDE
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 42.10.0
Chromium: 148.0.7778.280
Node.js: 24.18.1
V8: 14.8.178.38-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.291
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

Additional Information

This has already been reported in Closing maximized panel broken but it was automatically closed without being fixed. This is still an issue and is incredibly detrimental to my workflow. Until this is fixed, I can’t efficiently use Cursor and will have to go back to VS Code.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

7

Hey @awhile3304, thanks for the report, and sorry the earlier thread closed without a resolution.

I was able to reproduce this on my end. Closing a maximized terminal brings up chat instead of your code, and it isn’t caused by anything in your setup. This is an issue we’re tracking, and I’ve passed your report along to the team.

In the meantime, this keybinding gets the back and forth working again. Ctrl+J hides the maximized terminal and shows your code, and Ctrl+J again brings the terminal back maximized:

  1. Press Ctrl+Shift+P and run Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON).
  2. Paste these entries inside the [ ] brackets (add a comma after the last existing entry if the file isn’t empty):
{
    "key": "ctrl+j",
    "command": "runCommands",
    "args": {
        "commands": [
            "workbench.action.toggleMaximizedPanel",
            "workbench.action.closePanel"
        ]
    },
    "when": "panelVisible && panelMaximized"
},
{
    "key": "ctrl+j",
    "command": "workbench.action.toggleMaximizedPanel",
    "when": "!panelVisible"
}
  1. Save the file.

If you close the terminal with the mouse instead, click Restore Panel Size in the panel’s title bar first, then the X.

You could also give the Agents Window a try. It opens the terminal as a tab next to your files, so there’s no maximized panel involved, and you can switch between your code and the terminal by clicking the tabs. Press Ctrl+Shift+P and run Open Agents Window to try it, and Open IDE to switch back anytime.