How many tabs do you have open in your browser right now? If you said under ten or so, kudos–you probably don’t have a tab problem. Others, though, including myself, often have dozens of tabs overflowing in their browsers.
Here’s how you can take back control and make your browser a happier, more productive place to work.
Do not use tabs as bookmarks
Use bookmarks as bookmarks. Leaving tabs open because you want to go back to that page or remember where you saw something is the biggest cause of tab overload.
Use extensions to manage tabs
Another way to wrangle tabs is to use an extension that is designed to help manage tab overload. The upside is that extensions are powerful add-ons to Chrome. The downside is that too many extensions can make the browser consume more system resources.
Group related tabs into new windows
Keep tabs related to a particular project in a separate window from your everyday tabs, such as Gmail, and from other projects’ tabs in their own windows, as a simple way to group tabs. This won’t tame the number of open tabs you have, but it will make finding the ones you need–and don’t need–a bit easier.
Use your browser’s other features
Let us reintroduce you to a browser feature too often forgotten: the browser window. For the youngsters out there, it works a little bit like a tab, only it pops up in its own separate window, hiding what’s underneath. In most browsers, Ctrl+N (or Cmd+N on a Mac) will launch a brand new browser window. The benefit of browser windows rather than tabs is that they stack up on top of each other rather than slotting in side by side. Admittedly, your computer might still slow to a crawl if you open up too many of them, but you won’t be constantly distracted by movement in the tab bar.
Know your tab tricks
We’re not here to banish tabs from your browsing life altogether—we just want to help you use them in a more intelligent way. Right-click on a tab in your browser to see what other options are available. Depending on the browser, you can open up new tabs, reload tabs, duplicate tabs, pin them to the left of the tab bar, mute audio from a tab, bookmark tabs, close all tabs except the current one, send tabs to other devices, and more.
