When working with a large number of flows, the default tab system quickly becomes hard to manage and doesn't scale very well. I experimented with a small client-side script to improve this, with the following features: Moves flow tabs into a vertical panel above the left palette Adds hierarchical…

A few of us have certainly called for tab-groups in the past. That would be a great addition to Node-RED I believe. Your approach of using naming standards might be interesting though I think that personally I would prefer a full implementation. However, I wouldn't want perfection to get in the way …

I have been looking far and wide to improve visability on my large amount of flows. Especially as im working with multiple people, its sometimes frustrating to show them where certain flows are located that handle clients, servers, logic, etc. I tried to make a local script like you did. Now i made…

Node-RED

Node-RED Forum

Rethinking Node-RED flow tabs: hierarchical sidebar + grouping

Core Development Feature Requests

jbudd 4 May 2026 11:36 3

Also see https://discourse.nodered.org/t/node-red-5-0-0-beta-6-available/100878/79

Topic		Replies	Views
Feature Suggestion: Tab (Flow) Grouping in Node-RED Feature Requests	1	123	5 May 2025
Ability to structure flows General	7	758	15 April 2021
Group Tabs/Flows General	7	652	7 May 2022
Feature Request Folder Hierarchical Flow Organization / Folder Structure Feature Requests feature-request	2	170	25 July 2025
Best way to organize large flows? General	15	373	21 April 2025

Copyright OpenJS Foundation and Node-RED contributors. All rights reserved. The OpenJS Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of the OpenJS Foundation, please see our Trademark Policy and Trademark List. Trademarks and logos not indicated on the list of OpenJS Foundation trademarks are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.

Rethinking Node-RED flow tabs: hierarchical sidebar + grouping

Related topics