whalemonster said

Anyone know why Firefox does this / is it intentional behaviour?

Hello whalemonster,

This article will explain why :

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pinned-tabs-keep-favorite-websites-open

Just read what it says under "How are Pinned Tabs different than normal tabs?" :

"Pinned Tabs don't have a close button so you can't accidentally close them."

"You can still close them by right-clicking on them and selecting Close Tab from the menu."

Thank you. :)

whalemonster said

Thank you. :)

    My pleasure !

You can still close a pinned tab via a middle-click with the mouse wheel.

cor-el said

You can still close a pinned tab via a middle-click with the mouse wheel.

McCoy said

"You can still close them by right-clicking on them and selecting Close Tab from the menu."

I switched from Chrome to Firefox a week ago and I'm still finding this issue frustrating. I really think there should be a way to close pinned tabs without using the mouse.

Google search suggests that others have been finding this frustrating / confusing since at least 2015...

https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALeKk01rnmSyF3ynB9I9IOvLMiVq61ZOSA%3A1590755909093&ei=RQLRXvmVBYP9kwWawIrQAg&q=firefox+cmd+w+close+pinned+tab&oq=firefox+cmd+w+close+pinned+tab&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIECCMQJzoECAAQR1CUDViUDWD3DmgAcAF4AIABjwGIAY8BkgEDMC4xmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwi5zIrHi9npAhWD_qQKHRqgAioQ4dUDCAs&uact=5

Edit: the best workaround I've seen so far: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/367944

You can add the Pin icon to the page actions area to quickly unpin this tab.

You can find items like "Take a Screenshot" and the Bookmark Star and "Pin Tab" in the drop-down list that opens if you click the "Page actions" button (3-dot icon at the right end of the location/address bar).
You can right-click an item in the "Page actions" drop-down list to add its button to the location/address bar for easy access.

Thank you cor-el, this is helpful.

I'm still quite sad that I can't find a way to do this keyboard-only.

I found this add-on which is makes it possible to do ALT+P to unpin tab and then CMD+W to close the tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinunpin-tab/

The existence of this add-on makes me think I could perhaps code an add-on to enable CMD+W to close a pinned tab. I might have a go at this sometime soon – I'll post back if I do...