Arc Browser Pinned Tabs: How They Work

Pinned tabs in Arc browser are persistent, icon-only tabs that stay at the top of your sidebar, synced across devices, and are designed to replace traditional bookmark bars. They load instantly, update in the background, and can be organized into folders called Spaces. This guide explains exactly how they work, how to set them up, and how they differ from regular tabs and bookmarks.

What Are Pinned Tabs in Arc?

Arc, made by The Browser Company, reimagines the browser around a sidebar instead of a top tab bar. Pinned tabs are the core of that system. Unlike a normal tab that you open, use, and close, a pinned tab is a permanent shortcut to a website that lives at the top of your sidebar. It shows only the site’s favicon (the little icon), so it takes up minimal space. When you click it, the page opens in the main content area. You can have as many pinned tabs as you want, and they stay there until you unpin or delete them.

Think of pinned tabs as a hybrid between a bookmark and a tab. They are always there, like a bookmark, but they behave like live tabs—they can run scripts, show notifications, and update their content in the background. For example, if you pin your email, you’ll see a red badge with the number of unread messages right on the favicon.

How Pinned Tabs Differ from Regular Tabs and Bookmarks

To really understand pinned tabs, it helps to compare them to the other two ways of saving a page:

Regular tab: Temporary. It exists only while you have it open. Close it and it’s gone (unless you restore it from history).
Bookmark: A static link. It saves the URL, but it doesn’t load the page until you click it. No live updates, no badges.
Pinned tab: A permanent, live tab. It loads in the background, can show notifications, and is synced across your devices. It’s the best of both.

In Arc, bookmarks are tucked away in a separate library, so they’re not as immediately visible. Pinned tabs are front and center, which encourages you to keep your most-used sites one click away.

How to Create and Manage Pinned Tabs

Creating a pinned tab is simple. Here are the three main ways:

Right-click on any open tab and choose “Pin Tab.”
Drag a tab from the “Today” or “Unpinned” section up to the Pinned section at the top of the sidebar.
Right-click on a link and select “Open in New Pinned Tab.”

Once pinned, you can:

Rearrange: Drag the favicon left or right to change its order.
Unpin: Right-click and select “Unpin Tab” to turn it back into a regular tab.
Move to a Space: Drag it into a different Space’s sidebar.
Duplicate: Right-click and choose “Duplicate” to get a second copy.
Close: Right-click and select “Close Tab” to remove it entirely (this is different from unpinning—it deletes the tab).

Pinned Tabs and Spaces: Organizing Your Life

Spaces are Arc’s way of separating different contexts—work, personal, shopping, etc. Each Space has its own set of pinned tabs. This is incredibly powerful because it means you can have a “Work” Space with pinned tabs for your email, calendar, and project management tool, and a “Personal” Space with pinned tabs for social media, news, and banking. Switching Spaces changes the entire sidebar, so you only see the pinned tabs relevant to that context.

Pinned tabs are also synced across all your devices via your Arc account. If you pin a tab on your Mac, it will appear on your Windows PC or iPhone (via Arc Mobile) the next time you open the browser. This sync is real-time and includes the order of your pinned tabs and Spaces.

Advanced Features: Live Updates and Split View

Pinned tabs aren’t just static icons. They support several advanced features that make them feel like mini-apps:

Live favicons: Many sites (like Gmail, Slack, and X) change their favicon to show a notification badge or a progress indicator. Arc displays these directly on the pinned tab.
Background loading: Arc periodically reloads pinned tabs in the background so that when you click on them, they’re already up to date. You can control this in Settings > Tabs.
Split View: You can drag a pinned tab to the side of the screen to view two pages side-by-side. This works with pinned tabs just like regular tabs.
Quick Search: If you have many pinned tabs, you can use the Command+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) shortcut to quickly search and jump to a specific pinned tab.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

Here are a few issues users commonly run into with pinned tabs, and how to resolve them:

Pinned tabs not syncing: Make sure you’re logged into the same Arc account on all devices. Go to Settings > General and check your account. Also, ensure you have a stable internet connection.
Favicon not showing: Some sites don’t provide a favicon, or it may be slow to load. Try reloading the tab. If it still doesn’t appear, the site may simply not have one.
Pinned tab opens in a new window instead of the same one: This can happen if you have a setting that forces new tabs to open in a new window. Check Settings > Tabs > “Open new tabs in” and select “Current Window.”
Accidentally closed a pinned tab: You can undo this by pressing Cmd+Shift+T (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+T (Windows) to reopen the last closed tab, even if it was pinned.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do pinned tabs use more memory than regular tabs? Yes, they can. Because pinned tabs load in the background, they consume RAM even when you’re not looking at them. However, Arc has a feature called “Sleeping Tabs” that automatically unloads inactive tabs after a set period (default is 12 hours) to free up memory. You can adjust this in Settings > Tabs.

Can I pin a tab that requires a login? Absolutely. Pinned tabs work just like regular tabs for authentication. You log in once, and the session persists (as long as you don’t clear cookies). The pinned tab will remember your login state.

How many pinned tabs can I have? There’s no hard limit, but having too many (say, more than 20) can make the sidebar cluttered and harder to navigate. Arc encourages you to use Spaces to keep things organized.

Can I pin a specific page within a website, not just the homepage? Yes. You can pin any URL. For example, you can pin a specific Google Doc or a particular Slack channel. Just navigate to that page and pin it.

What happens to pinned tabs when I close the browser? Nothing. They stay in your sidebar, ready for the next time you open Arc. That’s the whole point—they’re persistent.

Is there a keyboard shortcut to pin a tab? Yes. On Mac, press Cmd+D to bookmark, but to pin a tab, you can use Cmd+Shift+D (this is the default, but you can change it in Settings > Shortcuts). On Windows, it’s Ctrl+Shift+D.

General steps for current mainstream versions; menus can differ by device and version. See the disclaimer or report an error.

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