Sidebar (computing)

The sidebar is a graphical control element that displays various forms of information to the right or left side of an application window or operating system desktop.

Like toolbars and status bars, sidebars host both information and GUI widgets with which the user issues commands to the app.

Unlike toolbars and status bars, sidebars have larger surface areas because of horizontally longer layout of desktop apps.

The standard email client, Mail, used drawers for listing mailboxes prior to 10.4 ("Tiger"), when they were replaced by a traditional sidebar.

The Android mobile operating system also uses the term "drawers" to refer to a type of sidebar menu widget, usually accessible by swiping from the left edge of the screen.