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The connections strip is a narrow column on the leading edge of the window. It lists every connection and database you have open, so you can move between them with one click instead of going back through the connection list, the Window menu, or the database picker. Each entry is a connection plus the database you are browsing in it. Open two connections and you get two entries. Switch one of them to a second database and you get three.
Connections strip

The connections strip beside the object browser, with two connections open

The strip appears once you have a second entry open, since a list of one has nothing to switch to. It is on by default; turn it off from View > Hide Connections, with Cmd+Option+0, or in Settings > General > Sidebar.

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What each entry shows

One icon per entry, top to bottom. The icon is the database engine’s symbol, tinted with the connection’s colour, so you can tell staging from production at a glance without hovering. The icon changes shape, not just colour, when a connection is not healthy: a warning triangle when it failed, and a disconnected symbol when it has no live session. Colour alone would be invisible to anyone who cannot distinguish red from grey. Under each icon is the database that entry browses. Long names are shortened in the middle, so both ends stay recognisable. Hover an icon for the full connection name, host, and database. VoiceOver reads the same information plus the connection’s state. The entry you are looking at is highlighted. Every window highlights its own, so the strip always tells you where you are. On servers that group objects by schema rather than by database, an entry stands for a schema. On a single-file or single-database engine, like SQLite, DuckDB, or BigQuery, a connection has one entry, labelled with the connection’s name.

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When an entry appears

Switching database adds an entry only when the one you are leaving has work in it. An entry has work when it has a table open, a query you have typed, a file you opened, or edits you have not saved. An entry goes away when its last tab closes and you are no longer browsing it. Nothing is closed for you, and the strip never removes an entry you still have work in. The set is per session, so relaunching starts from the databases your restored tabs use.

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Switching

Click an entry to go to it. Moving between two connections switches the window to that connection, returning you to the tab you last used there rather than an arbitrary one. Moving between two databases of one connection stays in the same window and moves what the sidebar lists. One window hosts every connection you have open. Each connection keeps its own set of tabs, and the tab strip below the toolbar lists only the tabs of the connection you are in. Switching reads as the window changing content, because that is what it is. Open tabs are never closed or retargeted by a switch. A tab keeps the database it was opened against and keeps querying it, whichever entry you are in. Clicking the entry you are already in does nothing. The strip takes the keyboard too. Click into it and the arrow keys move the highlight, typing jumps to a name, and Return opens the entry you land on.

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Moving to its own window

Right-click a connection and choose Open in New Window to move it out of the shared window, carrying its tabs, its session and anything you have not saved. The item appears only when the window has another connection left to show, since moving the last one would close the window and open an identical one.

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Closing

Right-click a connection and choose Close “<name>” to close it: every tab across every database it has open, its session, and every entry it has in the strip. Unsaved work is confirmed first, the same as closing a window. If the window has no other connection open, the window closes too. Middle-click an entry to close its connection without opening the menu. File > Close Connection does the same for the connection on screen.

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Disconnecting

Right-click an entry and choose Disconnect to end its session while keeping it open. The item only appears while the connection is live. Unlike Close, no window closes and nothing is removed from the strip: the connection shows a Reconnect screen in place of its tabs, with the tabs saved before the session ends. See disconnecting.

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Reordering

Drag entries to arrange them. The order is shared by every window and remembered across launches. Once you have arranged the strip, an entry keeps its position when you close it, and returns to the same slot when you reopen it. Until then, entries are listed in the order their connections opened, and the databases of one connection are grouped together by name.

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Keys

Show Previous and Show Next Connection move through the strip in the order it displays, not the order things were opened. Change any of these in Settings > Keyboard. If you had already assigned Ctrl+Cmd+Up or Ctrl+Cmd+Down to something else, your assignment wins and the command stays unbound until you free the chord again.