Browser
The desktop app has a built-in browser. A browser is a pane like a terminal, so it opens in a tab or a split, and its page keeps running while hidden.
Open a page
- File → New Browser Tab (
Ctrl+Alt+B), the globe button in the tab strip, or the command palette. nana browser open <url>from a terminal. See Nana CLI.- Ctrl-click a link in a terminal, when Settings → Browser → Open terminal links in the browser is on.
- A page that opens a new window gets a new tab instead.
Type an address or a search in the address bar. Matching history shows below
it. Links to other apps, such as mailto:, open in those apps.
In a page
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Address bar | Ctrl+L |
| Reload | Ctrl+R |
| Back / forward | Alt+Left / Alt+Right |
| Find on page | Ctrl+Shift+F |
| Zoom in / out / reset | Ctrl+= / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0 |
| Copy the page’s address | Ctrl+Shift+C |
| Web Inspector | Ctrl+Shift+I |
The toolbar also opens the page in another browser and switches the tab’s profile.
Profiles
Each profile keeps its own cookies, site data, history, and logins. New tabs use the default profile. Manage profiles in Settings → Browser, where you can also import history, bookmarks, and cookies from another browser on this computer.
Saved and not saved
A browser tab remembers its address and profile across restarts. Its title, zoom, and back/forward history start fresh.
Turning it off
Turn off Settings → Browser → Enable built-in browser to disable browser
tabs and nana browser. Terminal links then open in your system browser.
Engine
The browser uses Microsoft Edge WebView2. Windows 11 normally includes its Evergreen Runtime; if it is missing, install it from Microsoft. Nana still starts without it and reports why the browser is unavailable.
The page uses an owned native window aligned with its pane, drawn and driven by
the runtime. It follows window moves and resizes and
takes the pointer, keyboard, and clipboard itself, keeping its own context menu.
Because the app cannot draw over a native window, app content that
covers the pane — an open menu, a dialog, a drag in progress — is shown over the
page’s last still. Keys Nana keeps, such as Ctrl+R and
Ctrl+Shift+I, come back to the app; the rest go to the page. Right-clicking a
page shows the runtime’s own menu, which offers Inspect in the same builds
that keep the Web Inspector.
A profile’s cookies and site data live in a folder of their own under the browser profiles directory, so profiles stay separate: Settings → Browser can clear one profile’s site data through the runtime, and deleting a profile closes it and removes its folder. Importing history and bookmarks works from the installed Chromium-family browsers and Firefox. Cookies can be imported from Firefox; Chromium cookies are encrypted per user and per application on Windows, so they are not read.