8 New Notion Features You Should Know About!

Notion’s latest update adds a set of workflow-and-layout upgrades that make the workspace feel more “personal” and less cluttered—especially through pinned tabs, collapsible sidebars, and locked inbox panes. The biggest day-to-day change is the ability to pin tabs in the desktop app so frequently used pages open instantly and stay out of the way. Right-click a tab to pin it, and pinned tabs sit permanently to the left of unpinned ones. Notion also lets users reorder tabs by dragging, with the pinned/unpinned separation preserved.

The sidebar gets a similar treatment, but with more depth: favorites, shared, private, and team spaces can be collapsed and rearranged. Beyond that, the shared and private sections can reveal an expanded “more” area that behaves like a mini page browser. When enough pages exist, users can open this extra section, pin it to keep it locked open, and sort shared pages by last edited date—showing both the timestamp and page title. Subpages inside this pane don’t display their own last edited dates, and clicking them closes the section, which limits navigation but still creates a faster “at-a-glance” workflow. Notion’s current limitation is notable: this pane-style browsing works for shared and private sections, not team spaces, and sorting options are restricted (no alphabetical sort mentioned).

Inbox handling becomes even more practical. The inbox now supports the same kind of locked pane, keeping notifications in a stable area while users work elsewhere. It also adds filtering so users can focus on unread items, red notifications, or broader workspace updates. Those updates can include everything from page edits and deletions to new pages, database lock/unlock events, and even automated actions triggered by integrations such as Pipe Dream.

A new import capability targets a common pain point: PDFs. Instead of embedding a PDF as a file, Notion introduces a PDF import action (invoked via “/”) that extracts text and images and places them into Notion content. There’s a quirk in the demo—rather than inserting into the intended spot, the extracted content appears as a new page in the private section—but the payoff is clear: the imported material becomes searchable and pairs naturally with Notion AI.

On the content-editing side, Notion adds in-place image cropping with both freeform handles and preset aspect ratios. That makes it easier to build consistent layouts—like turning a set of images into a clean grid—without leaving the page editor.

Finally, database automations get two upgrades. Users can duplicate database automations (not just recreate them from scratch), then tweak only the parts that differ—like task names or assignees. Automations can also send Notion notifications when triggers fire, including messages to specific people or to users stored in properties (such as writer or editor). Slack notifications remain available on the free plan as an automation action, while other automation steps require a paid plan.