

Advice for dealing with "tab Hell" in your browser.  - theotown

So, I&#x27;ve got like 50 tabs open in 4 windows in Chrome. It&#x27;s become a standard thing for me. How do I manage this better? I&#x27;m going down the path to the dark side here. Kinda sucks. First world problems at their pinnacle!
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stoolio
Get OneTab
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall)

You click a button and it saves a list of your open tabs. You can sort and
organize your tab list(s) and even prevent it from storing dupes.

It is basically a glorified bookmarking solution.

Just try it for a few days. When things get out of hand, click the button.
Boom, no more tabs. You will be surprised how often you go back to read those
tabs you _needed_ (for me, almost never). You can go and search when you
remember a month later about that one site about that thing (via ctrl-f
broswer search on the onetab tab).

Some have complained that no "tab history" is stored, but for me, I don't need
any of that. I just need to know that my tabs are saved so I can feel safe
closing them. I have a problem...

OneTab gives me one button to click that gives me peace of mind, and more
memory. I even use it for most of my bookmarking needs, since it is so
flexible.

~~~
TheLoneWolfling
Any alternative for Firefox?

~~~
namlem
Tree style tabs us different, but it's what I use to manage my tabs.

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omgmog
A co-worker of mine has the same issue, I pointed them towards this article:
[http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2013/08/13/7-handy-chrome-
ex...](http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2013/08/13/7-handy-chrome-extensions-
to-save-you-when-you-have-too-many-tabs-open/)

There are plenty of extension options for dealing with tabs, and consolidating
them to a meta-list like that is a lot better than having them open as running
processes the whole time if you're not using them.

~~~
theotown
Thanks, will check this out. But it's kinda like taking the antidote from the
poisoner :-D

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auganov
If you're not doing it get in the habit of using kbd shortcuts for tab
navigation. Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab. Makes navigating a window with a lot
of tabs much easier. Close tabs with Ctrl-W. I never really touch the tab bar
with my mouse, so it's not a huge issue. Chrome also has Ctrl-1,2,3,4,5,6 etc
for quick jumps. And just press Ctrl-Shift-W once in a while (-;

~~~
theotown
Yep, definitely using keyboard shortcuts almost exclusively. My problem is
simply having too many open tabs that "I need".

~~~
Pyrodogg
Focus a bit more on the underlying problem of "I need" than on methods of tab
organization. I've occasionally described browser crashes where I completely
lose tab-state as something akin to a forest fire. Immediately devastating,
but ultimately beneficial for the forest.

Go through your tabs one-by-one and spend a moment with it. Look at it. Try to
remember why you got there in the first place. What rabbit hole were you
exploring? Why are you reluctant to set this tool down?

What is your brain associating this tab to? Consider making a bookmark folder
for that topic. Append your own personal keywords to the page title. Chrome
has a search for bookmarks, use it.

I find this process to be insanely beneficial. I'm generally reluctant to let
anything go and need to spends few conscious moments 'saying goodbye' to
things like these to free me from worry. I now practice zero-tolerance new
browser session at work each morning. At home I have one Chrome instance with
~5 tabs on average.

~~~
mattkennedy
This is brilliant—and resonates with a few posts I found from over a year ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714864)

I'm part of a team looking to build a browser extension that provides you with
much of this contextual history. A mindfulness tool in a way, which records
the steps taken as you traverse a rabbit hole.

Are you pretty diligent with returning to your bookmarks when you're looking
for things—rather than conducting fresh Google searches?

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tummybug
I use tab groups for arranging my tabs in groups, the shortcut Ctrl+` can be
used for cycling through tab groups. This along with the other shortcuts
mentioned make dealing with lots of tabs a lot less painful.

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vijucat
Firefox user here : I use the in-built (as in no add-on needed) Tab Groups,
and cut down on tabs by revisiting groups and using an approximate LRU
algorithm : if you don't use it, lose it.

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davidy123
You're in luck; this is the emerging age of ultra wide screen monitors. Today
there's 21:9, with two or three of those you should be fine for the next few
weeks.

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Andr0meda
Unsure about chrome, but in Firefox having a single click button to close all
tabs without closing the browser, helps dramatically.

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koberstein
Close some tabs.

