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.

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.

Editors' Recommendations

Alex Blake
In ancient times, people like Alex would have been shunned for their nerdy ways and strange opinions on cheese. Today, he…
How to save your data from Google’s purge of inactive accounts
The Google "G" logo on an Android phone.

Google is about to begin deleting inactive Google accounts, which could mean you’re about to lose photos, documents, and other data that you actually want to keep.

The good news is that there’s a way you can safely hold onto everything, but you’ll need to take action this week to be sure.

Read more
Chrome is still a RAM killer, but this new feature would be a huge help
Google Chrome icon in mac dock.

Google’s Chrome browser is infamous for consuming a lot of RAM. While recent updates have attempted to solve this problem from a technical side, a new feature may put more of the management in the hands of the user.
With the latest beta version of Chrome Canary, users can now simply hover their mouse cursor over a tab to gain access to real-time memory usage of that specific tab.
Up until now, you had to dig into the Chrome Task Manager to see how much memory each tab is consuming. But as reported by Windows Central, the new feature would give you quick and direct access to this important information. The prototype feature was first posted on X (formerly Twitter) by user Leopeva64 and showed the tab RAM usage.

Of course, it only gives a small overview and doesn’t offer the same detailed information (such as running processes, tabs, and extensions0 as the built-in task manager.
Practically speaking, having a small indicator on the top is going to make the process of clearing unwanted tabs a lot easier. The new feature is also said to inform users about whether Chrome's Memory saver feature has actively frozen a tab to save memory similar to Microsoft Edge's Sleeping tabs feature. Of course, this feature only works when a certain tab is inactive for a long period of time. 
Google is said to be testing this feature, but if you are using version 117 on the Stable Channel, you may get access to it. To enable the memory usage feature, head to Chrome://flags and search for Show memory usage in hovercards. Select the dropdown and enable it. A quick restart may also be required.
Recently, we saw Google testing on a feature that helps organize tabs in a more efficient way. Using the Organize Tabs features, the browser attempts to reorder your tabs into groups of similar pages. It even lets you rename these groups, and create tab groups automatically once it has categorized your tabs.

Read more
I write about tech for a living — these are the browser extensions I install on every PC
A person using a laptop on a desk with a web browser showing the HubSpot marketplace on their screen.

I write about tech for a living, so you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I spend an unreasonable amount of time browsing the internet (those dog videos aren’t going to watch themselves). Over my many years of surfing the web, I’ve used a huge number of browser extensions to tune up my online experience.

Some have been better than others, but I've carefully curated a list that can elevate your internet experience and help take it to the next level. If you’re after some new extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox and all the other best web browsers, these are my own personal recommendations.
1Password

Read more