Skip to main content

Google has a great idea to fix your tab chaos in Chrome

If you use Google Chrome and are sick of managing an unruly mass of tabs in your web browser, help may soon be at hand. That’s because Google is testing a new feature that could bring order to your tab chaos.

As spotted by Leopeva64 on X (formerly Twitter), a new edition of Google Chrome Canary (a version of Chrome that lets users test out experimental features) contains a new tool called Organize Tabs nestled in the top-left corner of the browser.

Recommended Videos

Apparently one of the options of Chrome's new "Organize Tabs" feature will be the automatic creation of tab groups, after organizing tabs into different groups, Chrome will allow you to rename them, this is what this option currently looks like in Canary:https://t.co/Tee5JieYgx pic.twitter.com/vjAY7KtIhj

— Leopeva64 (@Leopeva64) October 6, 2023

Click the Organize Tabs button and your browser will attempt to smartly reorder your tabs into groups of similar pages. So instead of a confusing array of different tabs, they will be placed together in related clusters. Chrome will let you rename these groups, and might even be able to create tab groups automatically once it’s been able to categorize your tabs properly.

That could go a long way to making your tabs much easier to manage. Once you have your open pages grouped with other similar tabs, it should be more straightforward to interact with them and close any you don’t need anymore. By doing the grunt work automatically, Chrome would make this whole process a lot more palatable.

Tab Groups elevated

Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.
Digital Trends

The new feature is not too dissimilar from Chrome’s existing Tab Groups feature. This lets you house related tabs in a group so that you can keep track of every website you have open. For instance, you might have a tab group for planning a holiday and another for a project you are working on.

Other browsers have introduced tab groups, with Apple adding them to Safari in macOS Monterey and Microsoft bringing them to Edge around the same time. Even new browsers like Arc have enthusiastically adopted them.

With that in mind, it’s unsurprising Google is looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. By automating the process, Google is hoping it can remove a process that might put users off tab groups — that is, the requirement to manually create and manage groups. The more tabs you have open, the more unattractive that task will seem.

There’s no word yet on when this feature might be publicly available, but when it does see the light of day, it could help Google Chrome cement itself as one of the best browsers out there.

Alex Blake
Alex Blake has been working with Digital Trends since 2019, where he spends most of his time writing about Mac computers…
Google’s AI can now tell you what to do with your life
Career dreamer results

Got a degree and no idea what to do with it? Google's newest AI feature can help. The company announced on Wednesday the release of Career Dreamer, an AI tool that can recommend careers that best suit you based on your experience, education, skills, and interests.

Grow with Google | Career Dreamer

Read more
Google’s new policy tracks all your devices with no opt-out
View of synced tab groups appearing on an iPad.

Google has begun enforcing new tracking rules across connected devices, such as smartphones, consoles, and smart TVs, as BBC reports. The tech giant once called the fingerprint tracking technique "wrong" in 2019, but has since reintroduced it.

Google has commented that other companies broadly use the data, and it started using it on February 16, 2024. However, that may not sound any better since fingerprinting gathers user data about devices' hardware and software, which can then uniquely identify a specific device or user.

Read more
Google boosts enhanced security with AI-powered upgrade
Person using Google

Google has strengthened Chrome's security with AI-driven real-time protection, helping safeguard your PC from dangerous downloads, sites, and extensions, as spotted by Leo on X (via Bleeping Computer). Google tested the update for three months, but it's now distributing it to all users on the stable channel.

The key change is the addition of AI-protection to the security feature, which is part of safe browsing, that's been around for years. However, users should remember that browsing data is sent to Google when you enable Enhanced Protection. Google renamed the feature to highlight AI integration, but how the new version varies from the previous one is unclear.

Read more