Workspace Switcher
Scan your .code-workspace files and open them in one click from the Activity Bar and the Status Bar. Clicking an entry opens that workspace in a new VSCode window by default.
Step 1: Pick Your Work/Root Folder
Step 2: Enjoy Your Workspaces
Getting started
Tell the extension where your workspaces live — no JSON editing required:
- Open the Workspaces view from the Activity Bar.
- Click the gear icon in the view title.
- Choose Add root folder... and pick a folder in the dialog. Several folders can be selected at once.
The folder is saved to workspaceSwitcher.rootFolders and the list re-scans right away. Open the same panel again to remove a folder with its trash button.
Features
- Activity Bar panel — A "Workspaces" view in the side bar lists every workspace found under your root folders. Click a row to open it in a new window; use the inline action to open it in the current window.
- Folder picker for root folders — Click the gear icon in the Workspaces view title to add a root folder through the native folder dialog, remove one with its trash button, or reveal it in the file manager. No hand-editing of
settings.json required.
- Status Bar button — A
Workspaces button in the Status Bar opens a Quick Pick to search and jump to any workspace.
- Recently Used section — When you have more workspaces than
lastUsedWorkspaceCount, the list splits into Recently Used and All, so the workspaces you switch to most are always at the top.
- Per-workspace colored icons — Tint a workspace's icon with any hex color via a single setting in its
.code-workspace file.
- Focused scanning — Only
.code-workspace files are listed (including those inside git repositories). Folders like node_modules, dist, out, .next, target, and .git are skipped automatically, and symlinked directories are not followed.
Configuration
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
workspaceSwitcher.rootFolders |
["~/Developer"] |
Root folders to scan. ~ expands to the home directory. Easiest way to change it: the gear icon in the Workspaces view. |
workspaceSwitcher.maxDepth |
4 |
Maximum scan depth from each root folder. |
workspaceSwitcher.ignoreFolders |
[] |
Additional folder names to skip during scanning. |
workspaceSwitcher.iconColor |
"" |
Hex color for this workspace's icon in the list. Usually set per-workspace in the .code-workspace file. |
workspaceSwitcher.lastUsedWorkspaceCount |
3 |
Number of recently opened workspaces shown under "Recently Used". When the total exceeds this value, the list splits into "Recently Used" and "All"; otherwise a single flat list is shown. Set to 0 to disable sectioning. |
Root folders
The gear icon in the Workspaces view (see Getting started) is the easiest way to manage this setting; Workspaces: Manage Root Folders... in the Command Palette opens the same panel. Clicking a folder in that panel reveals it in the file manager, and folders that no longer exist on disk are flagged.
Paths inside your home directory are stored as ~/... so the setting stays portable. Root folders are saved to your User settings, unless workspaceSwitcher.rootFolders is already defined in the current workspace — in that case the workspace value is updated instead.
Per-workspace icon color
To give a workspace a colored icon in the list, add a hex color to the settings block of its .code-workspace file:
{
"folders": [
/* ... */
],
"settings": {
"workspaceSwitcher.iconColor": "#d173f1",
},
}
Only the icon is tinted — the name never changes. When no color is set, a theme-aware default layers icon is used.
Usage
- Activity Bar: Open the Workspaces view from the side bar. Click a row to open it in a new window; use the inline action to open it in the current window.
- Status Bar: Click the Workspaces button to open a Quick Pick, then type to filter and press Enter to open.
- Root folders: Use the gear icon in the view title to add or remove the folders that are scanned.
- Refresh: Use the refresh icon in the view title to re-scan. The list also refreshes automatically when relevant settings change.
Special Thanks
