Tab Overload

Tab Overload: 10 Tips For Working With Lots of 

BrowserTabs

Too many browser tabs! It’s a problem everyone has at some point. For all the window-management tricks built into our desktops, we often just use a single browser window packed with tabs.

Most of these tricks will work in all browsers, but not every trick has made it to every browser.

Have Your Browser Remember Open Tabs

You may want to do something else without losing those browser tabs. Many browsers have an option to reopen your previous tabs the next time you open your browser. This means you can close your browser and shut down your computer, and the tabs you had open will appear the next time you launch it. In Chrome, you’ll find this option under Settings>On Startup>Continue where you left off. On Firefox, it’s Options>When Firefox starts>Show my windows and tabs from last time.

Save Your Browser Tabs For Later

For a quick solution, try right-clicking a tab and bookmarking all your open tabs as a folder. You’ll find them in your browser’s bookmarks later — you can even right-click the folder and open them all in tabs. Some browsers have add-ons that allow you to save and restore sessions of tabs, but this solution works in all browsers without any add-ons.

Split Your Tabs into Multiple Browser Windows

You can use more than one browser window to split up your tabs. In most browsers, you can now grab a tab from the tab bar with your mouse and drag it out of the browser window. It’ll become its own tab in its own dedicated window. Drag and drop tabs between tab bars in these different browser windows. You can also just open a new browser window in the normal way, of course.

Multiple browser windows give you an easier time when Alt+Tabbing between windows (Command+Tabbing on a Mac). On Windows, if you use an older-style taskbar that lists each window as its own item instead of the new Windows 7-style taskbar that groups windows under applications, it’ll even make it easier to switch between groups of open tabs from the taskbar.

Select Multiple Tabs at Once

You can select several tabs at once with your mouse in many web browsers. Just hold down theCtrl key (Command on a Mac) and click tabs in your web browser’s tab bar. You can also holdShift as you click tabs to select sequences of tabs. With multiple tabs selected, you can drag-and-drop them to group them together in a new browser window. Use the Ctrl + W shortcut (orCommand + Won a Mac) to quickly close those selected tabs all at once.

Pin Tabs

For websites you want to keep open all the time — for example, your email or a social media site — “pinning” the tab is a smart idea. Pinned tabs automatically open each time you open your web browser, so they’re always ready to go. They also shrink to just their icon in your web browser’s tab bar, ensuring you’ll have space for the other tabs you need. To pin a tab, right-click it and select Pin Tab.

Reopen Closed Tabs

Sometimes you need to get a tab back after you closed it. You don’t have to dig through your browser’s history to do this. Instead, just press Ctrl + Shift +T (or Command + Shift + T on a Mac) to reopen the last browser tab you closed. You’ll also find this option somewhere in your web browser’s menu, or perhaps by right-clicking the tab bar and looking for “Reopen Closed Tab” or a similarly named option.

Use Tab Groups in Firefox

Firefox has a built-in feature that allows you to manage large amounts of tabs by arranging them into groups. Just press Ctrl + Shift + E or click the arrow button on the tab bar when you have a lot of tabs open and select Tab Groups. Drag and drop tab thumbnails into different groups. Open the tab groups view and click a group of tabs to switch between groups of tabs, all without juggling multiple different browser windows. There’s also a search feature for quickly finding a tab buried in there somewhere.

With modern browser sync, any groups of tabs you have open can also be accessed from the same web browser on other devices — just log in with the same account in each and set up sync. Any groups of tabs you bookmark as a folder will also sync between the same browser on different devices, assuming your browser is also syncing your bookmarks.