Decrease spacing/padding between items in Solution Explorer in Visual Studio 2026

Question

Before Visual Studio 2026 Insiders [11206.111], there wasn't much spacing between items in Solution Explorer - between each item, there was little space, which made it easier to navigate.

After the update, Solution Explorer has changed. There is a lot of vertical spacing between each item in Solution Explorer now. It makes navigating much harder, and it is a nightmare when working with many source files in one directory, because now, it requires lots of scrolling for simple actions.

Before that, I didn't even have to scroll to see all files in this folder.

Is it possible to configure Visual Studio in a way to make the spacing between each item in Solution Explorer smaller?

Answer 1

Go to Tools->Options->Environment->Visual Experience and enable the checkmark "Use compact spacing in Solution Explorer":

Here's a side-by-side preview of the same directory:

Or, you can include the following line in your settings.json file:

"environment.visualExperience.useCompactSpacing": true