How to enable viewing workspace variables when hovering

This used to be a feature, but now I'm not seeing it in 2025b. When I am stopped and debugging code, I can hover my cursor over a variable and it will display a pop-up with the value of the variable. It also used to do this when not in debug mode if the variable name matched one in the current workspace, but it does not do this anymore. I found this useful when working on a script that operates in the base workspace. Is there a way to re-enable this functionality?

[Mathieu NOE]

helllo

hopefully this is still valid for 2025b :

You'll find the option in your preferences, Editor/Debugger subgroup, then Display.

The option is called "Enable datatips in edit mode"

[Matt J]

That's great. I never knew about this preference setting.

Answer 1

[Matt J]

If you upgrade to R2026a, you can recover the capability of viewing variable content in edit mode (in addition to debug mode). As the others have said, you must enable the setting "Enable datatips in edit mode”.

In 2025b, the datatip is unresponsive to this setting. However, in 2026a, the capability appears to have been restored.

[David K]

Yes, that did what I wanted for 2025b as well!

Answer 2

[Deepak]

Hi David,

I understand that you are trying to view variable values by hovering over them in the editor (even outside debug mode), which used to work earlier but is not visible in MATLAB R2025b.

To answer your question, in MATLAB R2025a/b the hover display of variable values outside debug mode (for example, from the base workspace) is not supported in the new desktop. Hover-based value inspection is now limited to debugging contexts, and there is no setting to restore the earlier behavior.

You can enable editor datatips using: Go to Preferences → MATLAB → Editor/Debugger → Display

Enable “Enable datatips in edit mode”

This enables hover tooltips where supported (primarily during debugging).

Hope this helps.