# Leaving Tinker mode?

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/leaving-tinker-mode/10923>\
**Category:** Feedback\
**Created:** [October 20, 2026, 3:30am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/leaving-tinker-mode/10923 "2026-10-20T03:30:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![akrawitz](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/akrawitz/32/4375_2.png) [@akrawitz](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/akrawitz)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2026, 3:30am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/leaving-tinker-mode/10923/1 "2026-10-20T03:30:02Z")

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Currently, in new Observable, in a published notebook, there are 4 icons on the right side of the page: Files, Dependencies, Tinker mode, and AI

For three of them (Files, Dependencies, and AI), if you click the icon once then the relevant functionality appears, and if you click it again the functionality hides.

For Tinker mode, clicking it once turns Tinker mode on, but clicking it again does nothing. I think this is counterintuitive and surprising for the user. Since the button is still there, it invites a second click for deactivation.

I understand that the situation is complicated, because any changes during Tinker mode by the user could be lost. But it seems like there should be some sort of UI response. Maybe ask the user modally if they want to throw away changes or fork? Or at least let them know that if they really want to leave tinker mode they can just reload the page?

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**Author:** ![mbostock](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/mbostock/32/9_2.png) [@mbostock](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/mbostock)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2026, 4:30am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/leaving-tinker-mode/10923/2 "2026-10-20T04:30:55Z")

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Yes, there was a brief discussion on this [earlier](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/issues-arising-from-the-migration-to-observable-2-0/10835/2). Most urgently we want to save tinkered edits on Fork; that’s close but hasn’t shipped yet. Otherwise, I guess editors should have a choice whether to save their tinkered edits, and non-editors should be alerted that exiting tinker mode will discard their edits.