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Does anyone know how to get SQL Server Management Studio to display the Table names in the Title. Right now they are next to useless and every time I need to look at a table I have to reopen it.

SSMS Tab Results

In the good old days I used to use to Enterprise Manager and that was much more useful.

Enterprise Manager Table Titles

I found Brent Ozars article here, and the corresponding entry in Options... doesn't seem to be anything useful in there. Maybe a 3rd Party Product?

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    I got a little misty eyed seeing Enterprise Manager. – billinkc Dec 19 '13 at 15:33
  • (To put this here, in case Brent's article is someday no longer available.) Everybody's right -- no table option -- but to find the options that are available: in SSMS 2014, go to Tools... Options... expand Text Editor... and click on Editor Tab and Status Bar. – Doug_Ivison Apr 18 '18 at 15:01
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If, when opening a table you choose Edit Top X Rows instead of Select Top X Rows:

Edit Option

The table name will then be displayed in the address bar:

Tab Title

which makes navigating between already open tables much easier.

You can use the SQL button if you need to edit the query in any way, but if you change it too much it defeats the object of having the table name in the title to start with.

Of course you should be using your "read only" user to do this on production systems.

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    Watch out for making accidental edits though :) – Kenneth Fisher Feb 19 '14 at 16:42
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    Yikes, the edit dialog in SSMS is fraught with peril. – JNK Feb 19 '14 at 17:00
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No, there is no way to make Management Studio do that. You've opened a query window, and you can customize what is displayed there, but table name is not one of the choices. After all, a small number of queries involve only one table. And think about these questions:

  • If you add another query to that window, what should the title become?
  • If you change the query it produced to be a join, what then?
  • If you've saved the query as some file, should the table name override the name you gave?

These questions are rhetorical, since the functionality is not possible anyway, but there are many other technical considerations that go far beyond right-clicking a table and saying SELECT TOP...

SSMSBoost seems to give you some control over these things, but I don't see table name as being an option here either (probably for the same technical challenges I raised in my bullets).

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As a workaround I sometimes add a fixed text as first column to my SELECTs. This can increase readability, if you have many result tables at once.

SELECT 'The contents of table X' as INFO, * FROM table_x
SELECT 'The contents of table Y' as INFO, * FROM table_y

Or, even better (even works when the result table is empty):

SELECT '' AS 'The contents of table X', * FROM table_x
SELECT '' AS 'The contents of table Y', * FROM table_y
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