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Perhaps you, unlike me, are an orderly person. You never open more than 10 tabs at a time, and when you do, you finish reading through all of them and close up shop, returning your window to a tidy state.
I’m a tab hoarder. Partially because I read and research a lot in the course of a work day, but also—I like reading and researching different things in general. I always accumulate tabs to return to. They form a to-do list of sorts.
But not all items on a to-do list have the same priority, and so having a wild conglomeration of tabs can make it actually harder to get through them fast. (Like: Where is that one for the dentist bill I need to pay?)
PCWorld
PCWorld
PCWorld
Enter tab groups. This feature in Chrome lets you bundle a bunch of tabs together. Think of it as the ability to use folders within your tab bar. You nestle a set together, label it with a color and a name, and then you can click on the group to see or hide the tabs within.
It’s incredibly flexible—I can manually sort by topic, project, or type of task. The tab bar stays tidier as a result, and I can find what I’m hunting for much faster. I don’t get as low-key stressed as when tabs start squishing up to the point of illegibility, either. (It feels like my to-do list becomes insurmountable.) You can also open tabs directly within a group, which saves a bit of time and mouse work.
Not to be left out, other Chromium browsers like Edge and Brave offer tab groups as well. To be honest, I like them best in Edge by just a smidge, since collapsed tab groups keep a uniform size in a vertical tab arrangement. You can also add Edge tab groups to an Edge collection, which allows you to return to the grouping later, even after closing it out from the tab bar.
As for other browsers I’ve used and loved—Opera fans don’t get tab groups, but you can use its Workspaces feature instead, which operates more like multiple desktops in Windows or macOS. And well, Firefox is the slow one of the group on this front. No native tab grouping feature exists yet. You’ll have to turn to a third-party browser extension (like Simple Tab Grouping).
But that’s fine still. I live a multi-browser life for a reason—for access to features I might not get otherwise (i.e., like this one I’ve been going on about). Because even though I could have fewer browser tabs open, I’m never going to.
Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor
Alaina Yee is PCWorld’s resident bargain hunter—when she’s not covering software, PC building, and more, she’s scouring for the best tech deals. Previously her work has appeared in PC Gamer, IGN, Maximum PC, and Official Xbox Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @morphingball.
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