🧭 Overview
If options such as Site Projects or Local SEO Tools have disappeared from your dashboard, your sidebar is most likely minimized or collapsed rather than missing entirely. This article walks you through how to identify the cause and restore full sidebar visibility in a few quick steps.
🔍 Why This Happens
The Search Atlas sidebar can appear to vanish or lose its labels in the following situations:
- The sidebar has been manually collapsed using the toggle arrow or minimize icon.
- Your browser window is in a narrow or full-screen state that auto-collapses the sidebar to icon-only mode.
- A previous session left the sidebar in a minimized state, which persists when you log back in.
- The browser zoom level is too high, causing the layout to compress and hide sidebar text.
🛠️ How to Restore the Sidebar
- Look for a collapse/expand arrow — Check the left edge of your screen for a small arrow icon ( ‹ or › ). Click it to expand the sidebar back to its full state. When expanded, you should see labeled menu items including Home, Authority, and all other tool categories.
- Check if the sidebar is in icon-only mode — If you see a narrow strip of icons on the left with no text labels, the sidebar is minimized. Click the expand arrow or the hamburger/menu icon at the top of the sidebar to restore full labels and navigation options.
- Exit full-screen mode — If your browser is in full-screen mode, press F11 (Windows) or Control + Command + F (Mac) to exit. Then refresh the page and check whether the sidebar returns to its default expanded state.
- Adjust your browser zoom level — Press Ctrl + 0 (Windows) or Command + 0 (Mac) to reset your browser zoom to 100%. A zoom level above 110% can cause the sidebar to collapse automatically.
- Hard-refresh the page — Press Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows) or Command + Shift + R (Mac) to reload the page without cache. This resolves cases where a stale layout state is stored in your browser session.
- Try a different browser or incognito window — Open Search Atlas in an incognito/private window or a different browser to rule out a browser extension or cached setting causing the issue.
🏠 Navigating Once the Sidebar Is Restored
After expanding the sidebar, you should see the full navigation menu on the left side of the screen. Key areas include:
- Home — Access your dashboard overview, playbooks, and project summaries by clicking Home in the left sidebar.
- Authority — Expand this section to reach tools such as PR Distribution, Cloud Stacks, Indexer, QUEST AI Visibility, Campaigns, and Inbox.
- Site Projects and Local SEO Tools — These options should reappear in the sidebar once it is fully expanded. If they are still not visible after completing the steps above, your current plan may not include access to those features.
❓ Still Not Seeing All Options
If you have expanded the sidebar and certain tools are still missing, consider the following:
- Your subscription plan may not include the tools you are looking for. Check your plan details under your account settings.
- You may be logged into a different workspace. Confirm you are in the correct account by checking the workspace name (e.g., "CSM Team") shown in the top header bar, next to the notifications/features icon.
- A temporary platform caching issue may be causing the display problem. Log out, clear your browser cookies, and log back in.
💬 Need More Help?
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.