Dirty Tab Cycle

Jump between unsaved editors without stopping on clean tabs.

Dirty Tab Cycle adds two commands to VS Code that move through open dirty text editors in visible tab order. If you are working across several files or untitled buffers, it gives you a fast next or previous unsaved editor command with wraparound.

Why use it?

VS Code can cycle through tabs, but it does not provide a built-in way to move only through the editors that still have unsaved changes. Dirty Tab Cycle narrows navigation to the tabs that still need attention.

Commands

Both commands are available from the Command Palette and can be assigned to keyboard shortcuts.

Suggested keybindings

No default keybindings are installed. Add your own in Keyboard Shortcuts or keybindings.json:

[
  {
    "key": "alt+]",
    "command": "dirtyTabCycle.cycleForward"
  },
  {
    "key": "alt+[",
    "command": "dirtyTabCycle.cycleBackward"
  }
]

How it behaves

• Scans tabs in visual order, left to right across editor groups.
• Skips editors that do not have unsaved changes.
• Wraps from the last dirty editor back to the first, and vice versa.
• Works with regular text files and untitled text editors.
• Ignores non-text tabs and custom editors.

Typical workflow

1. Edit a few files across one or more editor groups.
2. Run Dirty Tab Cycle: Next Unsaved Editor to jump to the next unsaved editor.
3. Save, review, or continue editing.
4. Run the command again until you have worked through every dirty tab.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.90.0 or newer.

Known limitations

• The extension targets text editors only. Webviews, terminals, and other non-text tabs are not included.
• The extension does not ship default keybindings because preferred tab navigation shortcuts vary widely between setups.

Release Notes

0.0.1

• Initial release.

Development

npm install
npm test
vsce package