You can change the way IntelliJ IDEA handles the editor tabs in the Editor tabs page of the Editor settings.

To change the maximum allowed number of tabs
  1. Open the Editor settings. To do that, click settings.png on the main toolbar, then click the Editor node in the Preferences dialog box, that opens.
  2. In the Editor Tabs page of the Editor settings, type the desired maximum allowed number of the editor tabs to be opened at a time in the Tab limit field.

    If the tab limit equals to 1, the tabs will be disabled. If you want the editor to never close the tabs, type some unreachable number.

To disable editor tabs
  • In the Editor Tabs page of the Editor settings, select None from the Tab placement drop-down list.

    With the disabled tabs, use the View | Recent files (⌘E or ⌘E⌘E or ⌘E⌘E or ⌘E^ E, ⌃E or ⌃E) command to quickly switch between files.

See Also

Reference: