The connections strip beside the object browser, with two connections open
Cmd+Option+0, or Settings > General > Sidebar > Show connections.
A hidden strip comes back on its own while the connection you are on has nothing to show, and goes again once it does. Disconnecting or losing a connection empties the object browser, drops the tab strip and dims most of the toolbar, and the strip is what puts the window’s other connections back within one click.
What an entry shows
The icon is the database engine’s symbol on a rounded tile, the same tile the welcome window and the connection switcher draw. A connection you gave a color fills the tile with it. The first line under the icon names the connection, the second names the database or schema it browses, and each line shortens in the middle when long. To read more of a long name, drag the line between the strip and the object browser to widen the strip, up to 240 points. New windows open the strip at its last saved width. Hovering gives the full connection name, engine, host, database or schema, color, and any state or transaction the entry carries, with its cause; VoiceOver reads all of it but the host. The entry you are in is highlighted, in each window separately. On servers that group objects by schema, an entry stands for a schema. On an engine that switches neither databases nor schemas, such as SQLite or Redis, a connection has one entry and one line, the connection name.Connection state
A mark before the name carries the state, and the welcome window and the connection switcher show the same marks. Shape tells the states apart, not only color.
The right-click menu leads with the command the state calls for; see When a connection drops.
When an entry appears
Switching database adds an entry and keeps the one you are leaving, so both databases stay a click apart. An entry lasts until you close it.
Closing an entry’s last tab leaves the entry where it is, with no tabs: tabs and entries close separately. A database with a tab open is always listed, since its entry is the only way to that tab. The set is per session, so relaunching starts from the database each connection opens on, plus every database your restored tabs are in.
Switching
Each entry keeps its own tabs. Clicking one shows its tabs and returns you to the one you last used there, and the sidebar follows to its database; the other entries keep their tabs until you come back. An entry with no tabs shows the empty tab area. Switching database from the toolbar, Database > Open Database… or the sidebar lands on that database’s entry the same way, and picking a tab of another database, fromCtrl+Tab or File > Reopen Closed Tab, takes you to its entry. No tab is ever closed or retargeted by a switch: each one keeps querying the database it was opened against.
Moving between schemas inside one database, such as PostgreSQL’s, keeps the entry and its tabs. Tables of the same name in two schemas are told apart by their schema-qualified tab titles.
On PostgreSQL, Redshift, and CockroachDB every database entry keeps its own server connection, so moving between two entries reconnects nothing and leaves each database’s open transaction and temp tables where they were. Closing an entry closes its connection and rolls back a transaction still open there, so it asks first when there is one. A badge on the corner of the entry’s icon marks a transaction: an orange hourglass while one is open, a red warning triangle once a statement in it failed and only a rollback is left. On other engines the badge marks every entry of the connection, since one connection holds the transaction for all of them.
The strip takes the keyboard too. Click into it, then use the arrow keys to move the highlight. Type the start of a connection, database, or schema name to jump to it, and press Return to open the entry.
More entries than fit the window means the strip scrolls, and it settles on whole entries rather than halfway through one. Switching to an entry that is off screen brings it into view.
Windows
One window hosts every connection you have open, and the tab strip below the toolbar lists only the tabs of the entry you are on: one connection and one database, or one schema on servers that group objects by schema. Opening a table or query on a connection already open adds a tab there rather than opening a second window. To put two connections side by side, right-click an entry and choose Open in New Window. It moves with its tabs, its session, and anything unsaved. The item is absent when the window has no other connection left to show. On a live connection the same menu opens Server Dashboard and Query Insights for that connection, switching to it first. Server Dashboard is listed only on servers that have one, and neither is listed while the connection is in Agent mode. A first window opens at 1200x800 and goes no smaller than 720x480; later windows reuse the last size and position. Whether a new one joins a tab group follows Prefer tabs when opening documents in System Settings > Desktop & Dock. Inside a group, Window > Show Previous Window Tab, Window > Show Next Window Tab, Window > Move Tab to New Window and Window > Merge All Windows apply; all four dim outside one.Ctrl+Tab goes to editor tabs first and switches window tabs only when the window has no other editor tab to go to. Those are macOS window tabs, which hold whole windows, not the editor tab strip, which holds one connection’s editors.
Closing and disconnecting
Right-click an entry and choose Close Database “<name>” to close that database: its tabs go, its entry goes, and the connection keeps everything it has open elsewhere. Unsaved work in those tabs is confirmed first, and the strip lands on the next entry. Middle-clicking does the same without the menu, and so doesCmd+W while the strip holds the keyboard, or while the entry you are on has no tab left. On servers that group objects by schema the item reads Close Schema “<name>”.
Close Connection “<name>”, below it, closes the whole connection: every tab across every database it has open, its session, and all of its entries. The window closes too if that was its last connection, and File > Close Connection does the same for the connection on screen. A connection down to one entry has nothing else left, so closing that entry closes it. Nothing is lost for good: reopen the connection, from the connection list or Database > Switch Connection…, and its tabs come back as they were.
Disconnect, on the same menu while the connection is up, reconnecting or lost, ends the session and keeps everything else. No window closes, no entry disappears, and the tabs are saved first; the pane reads Disconnected from <name> in their place until its Reconnect button, or Connect on the right-click menu or the Database menu, brings both back. Database > Disconnect does the same for the connection on screen, asking first when a transaction is open, a query is running, or changes are unsaved. Nothing reconnects on its own, a relaunch included: a connection you disconnected comes back on the strip as Not connected.
Reordering
Drag entries to arrange them. The order is shared by every window, kept across launches, and an entry returns to its slot when you reopen it. Until you drag anything, entries follow the order their connections opened, one connection’s databases grouped by name, and a connection you disconnect keeps its place. Reopening the last session keeps that order. Deleting a connection takes its entries out of the saved order. The rest is kept to 500 entries, dropping the ones you no longer have open, oldest first, so a database renamed or dropped on the server does not hold a slot forever.Keys
Previous and next move through the strip in display order, not the order things opened. Rebind them in Settings > Keyboard; if either chord is already yours for something else, your assignment wins and the command stays unbound until you free it.
Related
- Query Tabs for what a tab is bound to and what survives a restart
- Open Quickly for searching inside one connection or across all of them