Microsoft Employees Leak The Tab Feature Of The Windows 11 Notepad Application

JAKARTA - An employee of Microsoft accidentally announced that the Windows 11 Notepad app got the tab feature. The employee, a senior product manager at Microsoft, posted a photo of the Notepad version with a tab, and enthusiastically announced "The notepad in Windows 11 now has a tab!" with loudspeaker emojis.

The tweet was deleted minutes later, but it can still be seen before Windows Central and several Windows fan Twitter accounts have seen the error. The Notepad screenshot includes Microsoft's internal warning: "Rare Don't discuss features or take screenshots."

The warning indicates that the tab feature is still in early internal testing in Microsoft, but the Notepad tab feature may arrive in Windows Insiders in early 2023.

If Microsoft continues with a tab for Notepad, it will be the first built-in app to get a tab interface after Microsoft added a tab to File Explorer earlier this year.

Microsoft initially tested tabs in all Windows 10 apps four years ago in a feature called Sets. This includes support for tabs in Notepad and File Explorer, but Microsoft finally canceled the project and never sent it to Windows 10 users.

The addition of tabs in Notepad can indicate a shift towards the tabs that appear in more default Windows applications. Microsoft may have canceled the Sets feature for Windows 10, but that doesn't stop Windows power users from using third-party tools and apps to turn on tabs in various parts of the operating system.