Airtable must have it set so that airtable.com links open in the same tab, but links to non-Airtable domains open in another tab.

However, you can get the behavior you’re looking for by setting your Airtable button field to open a URL that is a Make custom webhook, and then use a webhook response to redirect the user to the Airtable page you’re looking to take them to.

This will always open a new tab, and it will automatically redirect the user to whatever Airtable page you want to take them to. You can even make it a dynamic URL based on the record that they were looking at in Airtable.

The screenshots below show the simplest version of how it would be setup in Make (i.e. just a simple redirect), but you can make it more advanced than this, too.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld 

@ScottWorld my thoughts too. Weird behaviour to not give it configurable, throws people off the workflow screen they are on. 

I would definitely submit this as a feature request to support@airtable.com.

just dealing with this ...I made a formula for the interface URL record link  and that opens in a new tab but when I make a button referencing that same link it opens in the same tab. However when you create an "Interface Button" it has the toggle to open in a New Tab but the Basic Airtable Button field does not..silliness.

There actually is a workaround to get this to work with Airtable’s button fields.

The workaround uses Make’s advanced automations & integrations, and I just updated my original reply above with this information as well.

You can set your Airtable button field to open a URL that is a Make custom webhook, and then use a webhook response to redirect the user to the Airtable page you’re looking to take them to.

This will always open a new tab, and it will automatically redirect the user to whatever Airtable page you want to take them to.

You can even make it a dynamic URL based on the record that they were looking at in Airtable.

The screenshots below show the simplest version of how it would be setup in Make (i.e. just a simple redirect to a static URL), but you can make it more advanced than this, too.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld