Nifty Auto Hide

Hide the side bar and panel when you click into the editor, for more room to code. Pin them open when you need them.

Maintained. No sign-in. No telemetry. Works in VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium and other editors that use Open VSX.

Features

Searching in the side bar with the terminal open

One click back into the code and the side bar and panel are out of the way

More room to code. Open the Explorer, Search or Terminal as usual. When you click back into the editor, they get out of the way: the side bar and the panel close.
Pin them open with the status bar button or Ctrl+Alt+H (Cmd+Alt+H on Mac) when you want them to stay for a while, like during a long search-and-replace. Click again to resume.
Stays out of your way. Selecting text doesn't hide anything (you might be copying it into Search). Clicks in Output or the Debug Console don't count. Nothing is hidden right after you switch back to VS Code from another app, and the panel stays open while you debug.
Your choice of what hides. The side bar, the panel and the secondary side bar (Chat, Outline) can each be switched on or off, and the trigger can be the mouse, the keyboard or both.
Available on Open VSX for Cursor, Windsurf and VSCodium, where the old Auto Hide extension isn't published.
Works in the browser on vscode.dev and github.dev.

Command	What it does
`Nifty Auto Hide: Pin Side Bar and Panel Open`	Pause hiding until you run it again (`Ctrl+Alt+H`)
`Nifty Auto Hide: Turn Auto Hide On/Off`	Switch the extension on or off
`Nifty Auto Hide: Hide Side Bar and Panel Now`	Hide them right away (bind it to a key if you like)

Setting	Default	What it does
`nifty.auto-hide.enabled`	`true`	Hide when you click into the editor
`nifty.auto-hide.sideBar`	`true`	Hide the primary side bar
`nifty.auto-hide.panel`	`true`	Hide the panel (Terminal, Problems, Output)
`nifty.auto-hide.secondarySideBar`	`false`	Hide the secondary side bar too
`nifty.auto-hide.triggers`	`["mouse"]`	`mouse`, `keyboard` or both
`nifty.auto-hide.delayAfterFocus`	`300`	Ignore clicks this many ms after switching back to VS Code
`nifty.auto-hide.keepPanelWhileDebugging`	`true`	Keep the panel open during debugging
`nifty.auto-hide.showInStatusBar`	`true`	Show the pin button

VS Code: search for "Nifty Auto Hide" in the Extensions view, or install from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium, Kiro, Antigravity: install from Open VSX.

This extension collects no telemetry and needs no account.

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