
“Why does Chrome not have a good tab management system built in?” - DiabloD3
https://plus.google.com/+PatrickMcFarlandDiablo-D3/posts/L3w3ck596LF
======
wcarss
I'm pretty certain the Chrome PMs actively decided long ago that people who
use lots of tabs make up too small of a population to support in-browser with
special features. The featureset has worsened with time, moving from correct
rendering of more than one horizontal page of tabs (but infinitely compressing
them to the point that you cannot click on any specific one) to an obvious
graphical bug (rendering tab handles behind the + button and then off the
right edge of the screen), to today: no graphics glitch, it is just impossible
to tell you have more than a certain number of tabs. They're there, just
without any indication at all.

I know those things because I frequently have >200 tabs open, and have done so
for many years. But I'm not surprised that it would be considered too niche to
fix, because the reactions of most people (among a fairly tech-savvy sample of
people looking at my web browser) go to the point of making comments about
their surprise at how many tabs are open on my screen. It just isn't very
common behaviour.

During the 'graphical glitch' era, I was an intern on the WebKit team at
Google and asked about the bug, and some people knowingly chuckled and said,
"yeah, that isn't something that's going to be fixed soon." I imagine it was
also a tough bug.

Anyway, it would still be cool to support better tab features.

~~~
mscrivo
I'm genuinely curious as to the thought process of having that many tabs open.
I often feel like I'm missing something when I see people doing it. Is is the
muscle memory of knowing where each tab is? If so, how does that work when you
move to a device that has a different resolution?

~~~
Klathmon
Well for me i generally have about 10 tabs "pinned" that are always there,
always in the same place, and always open. That is in my "general" window
which i also browse reddit/hn and other sites on.

[http://i.imgur.com/FBXmBqh.png](http://i.imgur.com/FBXmBqh.png)

Then i have a second window which i use for work. That generally has a few
work-specific tabs (work email, time tracking, trello, etc...) which are
always pinned, plus a few "general work" tabs which i'm using.

Then i like to open a new window for each project i'm working on. So i've got
one right now working on integrating node.js with our 80's language. That
window has about 15 tabs from the node manual as well as the 80's language
manual and some stuff about dlls in windows.

Then i have a window for my personal project i'm currently working on. It has
the github repo, travis.ci, coveralls, and sauce-labs pinned, as well as the
handful of tabs that i'm currently using in that project (research, test tabs,
various other crap).

It totals to about 4 windows, and about 100-200 tabs total depending on how
busy i am any given day.

I don't bookmark or close them because i don't have to, and while some of the
pinned tabs are important, many of them are just where i left off and aren't
really bookmark-worthy.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Having multiple tabs per window seems reasonable - I have ten open in my
"work" window, and seven (three pinned) in my "personal" one - but when I see
someone with a single browser with a hundred tabs open, I always wonder what
their workflow and brain are like.

I think that's probably what mscrivo was curious about.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Data point:

I often end up with many (read, ~100? Varies widely.) tabs open.

I work like a priority queue. When I'm reading something, and see something
interesting as a link, I open it in a new background tab and keep reading the
current thing. Then go to the most interesting/relevant/time-sensitive tab I
have open and read that. Repeat. ( while not que.isEmpty():
que.pushAll(que.popBest().getChildren()) ) This adds up quickly.

For example, with HN I tend to browse the entire front pages (active /
standard) / my user threads before I actually start reading links / comment
pages. And when I'm reading a comment page I tend to open comments to reply to
in a new tab to get back to them later.

Ditto, if I'm coding something unfamiliar I often find myself looking up
things recursively. Oh, here's two options to do thing A I need to do. Oh
look, option A requires things B and C. Oh look, B requires D. This is
sounding too complex, close tabs for things A/B/C and try option 2 instead.
Etc.

Realistically, I only need at max two or three tabs actually loaded at once
_most_ of the time - but at the same time I want things to be loaded before I
get to them, and I _do not_ want to lose data from unloading pages. Lazarus
helps, but there are pages that still lose data on reloads.

------
shalmanese
Yeah, it's not going to happen. I've known people at both Mozilla and Chrome
and the data shows heavy tabbers are in the extreme minority. I've run
informal surveys and heavy tabbing has around ~30% penetration in the extreme
techy circles which is why everyone thinks everyone else is doing it and it
needs to be fixed.

Out in the wild though, it's something like, 95% of people never have more
than 10 tabs open and 99% of people never have more than 20 tabs open. Don't
quote me on the exact figures but those are in the ballpark of correct. It's
hard to justify building a feature set for less than 1% of your users.

~~~
wanderr
They should not underestimate the value of power users though. How many
regular users does a power user influence in browser choice? I don't know but
I suspect it's high and has a lot to do with the early FF to Chrome migration.

Besides that with the # of people using browsers a tiny minority can actually
still be a huge # of users.

------
Grue3
Firefox has this feature and it's great. Mozilla should be promoting the hell
out of Tab Groups instead of shit like Pocket.

~~~
magicmu
I've really been blown away by Firefox lately, it's looking better and better.
I'm still not confident enough to make it my primary browser for dev though;
Chrome's dev tools are just amazing.

~~~
petepete
Chrome's dev tools are the only thing keeping me with it. I use Firefox at
home, and the dev tools have improved lots over the last year, but there are a
few small annoyances compared to Chrome.

~~~
erlich
I switched to Safari recently for my main browsing. My life has significantly
improved. Chrome was just too damn slow, and I always stayed with it because I
thought I needed the extensions and the features that Safari lacked, and that
Chrome iOS was better.

Turned out I didn't, and Safari has lots of great features that are well
thought through.

I still use Chrome for web dev, but it only runs a single tab with the web app
I'm working on.

Try new things! :)

------
zamalek
I'm curious about the UX for such a feature, I'd presume it would be a
nightmare to get right:

\- How would a user quickly set the category on a tab?

\- I would presume that a user would only want to categorize things once the
browser becomes unwieldy. How could it be done in bulk?

\- Where would the UI elements for this go? Considering that Chrome strives to
be minimalistic.

\- How would the categories be communicated to the user?

\- _I should be able to tell Chrome "Hi, [... snip ...]"_ How?

I'm fairly certain that this idea has been mulled over multiple times, even by
Google. The problem isn't having the idea in the first place, it's the
implementation. I think that if someone wanted Google to "steal" this, they
would need to approach them with viable mockups demonstrating an elegant
solution that fits in with the spirit of Chrome.

~~~
dredmorbius
Time and parent alone would be a good start.

------
yareally
Opera 12 and before had this feature. You could save all open tabs/windows as
a stored session with a name of your choice, then reopen it later.

Allowed you to have as many sessions as you wanted, though much of the time, I
would end up realizing most of those tabs weren't that important and just
delete the session later.

[http://help.opera.com/Windows/12.10/en/sessions.html](http://help.opera.com/Windows/12.10/en/sessions.html)

------
gazab
The Chrome extension Spaces is close to that:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spaces/cenkmofngpo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spaces/cenkmofngpohdnkbjdpilgpmbiiljjim)

------
wil421
Usually when I have this issue in Chrome I just Bookmark -> Bookmark All Tabs
-> Create a New Folder "Project A" do the same for "Project B". When I need to
get back I open all the tabs in the Project x folder.

If you are on a Mac you can go a step further and create different desktops
for different projects, the only draw back is if you accidentally Cmd + Q an
app that is open on multiple desktops.

~~~
glomph
Bookmark all tabs is good but it doesn't update as you carry on with the
project.

------
ohaal
Tabs Outliner[1] is great for this. It's lacking sync (an extra top layer in
the tree for each device would make sense), but other than that, it is
fantastic, and has really reduced my memory usage back to normal levels. It
allows you to suspend entire windows, and quickly browse all tabs. Allows for
unlimited* levels of named trees/notes/windows/tabs. It does however NOT save
the state of the page, only the URL.

When the Chrome Sidebar API[2] is implemented, I'm sure it will only get
better, as the need for an extra window should no longer be necessary.

Here's a video overview of its features:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqjcrfKjobY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqjcrfKjobY)

* I haven't reached the maximum yet...

[1]: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl?hl=en)

[2]:
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=51084](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=51084)

~~~
erlich
Checked out Tabs Outliner a few years back. Too complex for me. But it feels
like once you get the hang of it, it might be useful if you fear losing those
golden tab gems.

IMHO you always come across more tabs than you ever have a chance to read. And
you'll always get back to them again when you actually need them via Google
search.

I would love a tab sidebar. This might make Firefox worth checking out.

------
ddandd
Talking about tabs, I am really curious why links which get opened in new tabs
don't feature a working back button. It really bothers me when reading an
article that contains a lot of references, I open them, each one on a new tab,
read through each one of them and then can't get back to the old one (I
usually resort for Ctrl+Shift+T too many times).

------
alaskamiller
[https://www.one-tab.com/](https://www.one-tab.com/)

~~~
loceng
I've been appreciating The Great Suspender extension;
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-
suspende...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-
suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg?hl=en)

------
hobs
Comment already says it on the google plus page, but tab groups in firefox
already do this.

------
jack-r-abbit
People keep talking about "power tab users" are in the minority. But you don't
need to be a power tab user to want better tab management. I usually only have
10-15 tabs open but I really wish Chrome let me manage them better. Chrome has
that setting to reopen the last tabs used when you close the browser. But it
often gets confused when multiple windows are open. It only remembers the tabs
of the last window closed. I feel like once every couple weeks I find myself
re-opening/re-pinning my main tabs. I'd love to be able to just store/open a
group of tabs I want to use.

------
DiabloD3
I'd like to thank everyone who responded here. I'm now aware of OneTab, but
their support for cross-syncing isn't done yet, and it doesn't help in the
(somewhat degenerate case) of Chrome on Android (which always seems to be left
behind when you're doing cool stuff).

Solving this with an extension seems suboptimal when Google may already have
an internal unreleased project that does what I want.

If OneTab (or Spaces, another similar extension) could sync across my
computers, this would probably be 90% of what I requested.

------
untog
Because it's the perfect example of a power user feature. Nothing wrong with
that, just that it's the kind of thing that browser extensions are made for.

------
wink
I don't usually have more than 30 tabs open, my problem is separating them by
'topic'.

To a degree I can solve that with different browsers or profiles, but when
clicking a link on irc or in a mail or twitter it always opens in the default
browser.

My main gripe there's no way to have real context switches there, then again
maybe I would just have to find a way to send a certain tab to a certain
browser instance with a keyboard shortcut...

------
js4all
I made a simple and effectve extension for that, because none of the existing
ones worked for me or were spoiled with analytics / phoning home.

Manage Tabs - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/manage-
tabs/kijdih...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/manage-
tabs/kijdiheabofhiihcebgpeelmgfmcogel)

------
neumino
I open one window per project, and use a good windows manager (awesome wm ^_^)
and it works like a charm.

But then people don't want to use a tiling windows management because it's too
hard to learn...

------
dredmorbius
Tabbed browsing itself is a band-aid over miserable browser document and state
management.

Bookmarks are both too painful to manage or navigate (and despite both
limitations, I use them extensively). Tabs address the situation of "I want to
read this but not right now". Chrome's implementation makes managing,
prioritizing, and relating tabs all but impossible.

The larger problem is that the entire browser paradigm is approaching its end-
of-life date, and what is now "the browser" almost certainly wants to be four
distinct classes of application:

* Reader: a document-oriented applicaton with commenting, bookmarking, newsfeed, bibliographic management, annotation, and commenting capabilities. A bit lof the love-child of the original Web browser model, eBook reader, RSS/Atom feed, Readability or similar "simplified Web" presentation tool, Usenet newsreader, and tools such as Zotero or Calibre. Actually, Zotero, Calibre, or an eBook reader might well assume this role.

* A generalized application platform. A cross between current "full-featured" browsers and mobile development environments. Likely based on the concept of downloading the App framework only when it updates, containing it within a sandboxed runtime, and interacting with cloud-based services as needed.

* A dedicated commerce platform. Firewalled from other uses, increasing both privacy and security, with purchase, order-fulfillment, and related functions offered securely. Possibly growing out of a dedicated commerce app, e.g., Amazon or iTunes.

* A dedicated media player. Rather than having dozens of videos and audio players scattered among browser tabs, a single application which can enqueue, play, and/or schedule playback. VLC is closest to this, and has many of the features I'd like, though none of the stability. youtube-dl, local filesystem storage, and mplayer are my usual solution these days.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_browsing_a_lousy_bandaid_over_poor_browser/)

Yes, I've heard the "but heavy tab users are a minority case".

Answering that:

1\. They're power users. Power users are a minority case. They're also a
strong influencer community, and they lead migrations. Google Chrome (as with
much else at Google) is no longer _attractive_ , it's simply _not sufficiently
repulsive_. But it's a tool people are using because they perceive either
alternatives or siwtching costs as insufficiently better. That can change
rapidly.

2\. If you make something sufficiently painful, well, _NO SHIT._ People will
tend to avoid it if they can. Power user's _can 't_ avoid it, and _will_ find
alternatives, eventually.

It's not even a matter of "oh, I'll get around to reading that stuff. It's
that the state of tab management, on top of memory issues with Chrome, is so
fucking abysmal that I cannot sort out what the fuck is in tabs, or how
they're related.

Eventually the session crashes and I start over, but there's _always_ painful
state loss involved.

Why do I still use Chrome? Stylebot + Developer Tools. The state of Web design
is so fucking abysmal that I've got 1700+ local stylesheets applied to various
websites that I'd have to port and load somehow in Stylish on Firefox. And ...
as annoying as other bits of Chrome are, the Developer Tools are decent, so
fixing fucked-up Web design's a tad easier. And given the option of wanting to
stab my eyes out staring at crap pages or dealing with Chrome's utterly fucked
up memory and tab management ... tabs win, just barely.

But love Chrome? Who the fuck are you kidding?

------
Zigurd
New Window. Right click on a bookmark folder. Open all bookmarks.

------
akilism
should check out vivaldi browser. has built in tab groups.

------
mahouse
I don't like this idea at all. It looks a lot like Activities in KDE. I think
it's very complex for the average user to understand. It should be done as an
extension instead.

