Alright, so you have too many tabs open. If you close some, you know you’ll forget about them and never get back to them. But having that many tabs also takes a hit on your productivity because you can never find anything. They call you a madman, a tab hoarder. But they don’t know that the chaos drives you. But I do. As someone who juggles anywhere between 80 and 150 tabs at any given time, I get it. And it looks like browsers are finally trying to accommodate us.
Tab hoarding is nothing to be ashamed of. Browsers are adding features like multiple workspaces, tab grouping, and (my personal favourite) vertical tabs to help manage your hundred-something tabs. And the latest addition to the mix is the ability to automatically group tabs using AI.
Smartly organise your tabs with Chrome
In January of 2024, Google first announced the feature to “smartly organise your tabs” using generative AI. Google has been announcing many more AI features for Chrome as a part of its Gemini integration. With this new AI tab organiser, Chrome will automatically suggest and create tab groups based on your open tabs.
This long-awaited feature finally made it to the canary builds of Chrome in November, but we have yet to see it in a stable release. To use this feature, all you have to do is click the drop-down arrow to the left of your tabs or right-click on a tab, and you should find the “Organise Similar Tabs” option.
Calm your tab chaos with Edge
Microsoft also announced a similar feature for Edge in Ignite 2024. However, the announcement only mentioned Edge for Business. Such a feature should soon be available in the consumer version of the browser.
Tab grouping is easier to manage with vertical tabs. As an Edge user, I am excited to see their implementation of AI tab grouping. In their blog, they also mentioned that “These tab groups remain synced across your devices, ensuring you stay organised regardless of your location.” So, if you’re using Edge on multiple devices, your “emotional support” tab groups will stay with you.
Web browsing has remained essentially the same since the 90s. (Shout out to Netscape Navigator!) But with all the exciting new AI features, I hope to see significant changes in this space.