Stop opening links in new tab in modern pages
Please stop opening links in a new tab by default in modern pages.
It is against standard web behaviour (https://www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20120103/G200), and is confusing to users when they end up with 10+ tabs open when navigating even the simplest site.
Make it optional by all means, it makes sense in a number of cases, just please not by default.

104 comments
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Ross commented
Are there any workarounds to this?
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Jim Asbille commented
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Anonymous commented
THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!
No other application I have used ever enforces this behaviourPLEASE FIX ASAP
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him commented
Now it's 1 Year since this "little" Problem is known and still not fixed :-|
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Nicolas Pottier commented
It is not something hard to accomplish. I don't see any reason why it's taking so much time.....
Good IT solution is not always about fanzy nice (slow) UI. Its much more on how provide UX that has values for your business
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Mahavir commented
+1, with 'no hopes' to have this fixed any sooner.
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Anonymous commented
FIX THIS! Does Microsoft really want to lose marketshare to Google Docs? Is it TRYING to kill SharePoint?
I'm hesitant to role SP 365 out to our users because this idiotic behavior may just be the straw that broke the camel's back. It's ridiculous that we admins have to beg this company for over TWO YEARS to get something as basic as this "feature" changed!
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Jay commented
+1 seriously!
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Anonymous commented
Agree, it is complete failure to not address only opening links in new tab. Provide an option. Regret move to modern due to limitations.
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Anonymous commented
Adding yet another +1 to this. It is ridiculous to open new a new tab for every click. We're in a constant struggle with resources on our Citrix VDI environment and this really isn't helping.
I feel like we've been punished for moving from Classic pages to Modern pages.
Please fix asap
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Anonymous commented
This was raised in Feb 2017 with a 'working on it' tag as May 2017... seriously? When are you going to fix this? It's ridiculous. Thanks.
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Anonymous commented
please fix
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Anonymous commented
Please. Fix this.
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Justin commented
Please make this configurable. This is still relevant today 2 years later.
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Anonymous commented
Agreed,, its very bad behavior. you need have the options like promoted links. if someone want to open in new tab he can if not he also can.
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Andrew commented
A customer of ours is requesting that this feature become configurable. It is causing a lot of confusion because the number of tabs that are open in their browser after navigation the SharePoint portal.
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Ian Caldwell commented
Agreed, this is bad web behaviour, and confusing for our users. Please provide global option or page-specific options to stop opening quicklinks in new tabs.
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Jason commented
Is this irritating behaviour going to stop? We're looking at implementing Sharepoint Online and this one thing irritates my users to the point that they don't want to use Sharepoint and we're going to have to look at other options. This surely is a very simple change and I can't believe someone in Microsoft thought this was a good idea.
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Jared commented
It's almost a year of nothing. Just give up. I have.
Here's some shortcuts for quickly closing tabs.
Ctrl+W - Closes current tab
Middle-click - Closes target tab
Ctrl+Left-click - Closes target tabMy muscle memory is now;
Left-click link
Point straight up and middle-click the tab
New tab becomes main browseUnfortunately there's obviously no 'back' options for that tab.
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Tracey commented
Please stop opening a new tab by default. This is super confusing and annoying to end users. This should be optional and configurable for say, external links. This seriously hinders adoption of the new platform.