cis‐ and trans‐Cycloheptane‐1,2‐diyl‐fused crown thioethers ([12]ansS4), 2,3‐cis‐ and 2,3‐trans‐cycloheptano‐1,4,7,10‐tetrathiacyclododecanes (cis‐2 and (±)‐trans‐2), were synthesized from newly prepared cis‐ and trans‐cycloheptane‐1,2‐ditiols, respectively. X‐ray diffraction analyses on cis‐2 and (–)‐trans‐2, which was obtained by optical resolution of (±)‐trans‐2 with a chiral column, showed that in cis‐2 the S‐C‐C‐S part fused with the cis‐cycloheptane‐1,2‐diyl adopted a gauche orientation and that in (–)‐trans‐2 all S‐C‐C‐S parts took anti‐conformations. A competitive complexation experiment of cis‐2 and (±)‐trans‐2 with AgOTf revealed that cis‐2 was more favorable than (±)‐trans‐2 for the complexation. The structure of [Ag(cis‐2)]NO3 was analyzed by X‐ray crystallography. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 22:388–396, 2011; View this article online at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/hc.20695