5 Tips For Organizing Tabs In Chrome That Will Keep You Sane

How often do you lose track of an important Google document because you've got a million tabs open? Or how many times have you opened the same tab three times because you couldn't find the original one?

Whether you're conducting research for a project or are skimming the news during your lunch break at work, it can be easy to get lost in endless unnecessary tabs.

Here are a few quick tips that can help you keep your Chrome window clean and organized.

1. Pin your most important tabs.

You can do this by right clicking any tab and selecting "Pin Tab." This will move the selected tab over to the left of the screen. It also makes the tab slightly smaller so that it consumes less space in your browser window. The idea is to keep all of your most important tabs in one section so that they're easy to find. For example, if you've got some work-related tabs mixed in with websites that you're casually browsing, you could pin all of your work-oriented tabs to group them together.

2. Drag tabs into a new window.

Just because you don't need to view a certain tab right now doesn't mean you won't have to reference it later. Don't be afraid to move tabs you're not currently using into a separate window to keep your browser clear. You can do this by clicking on the desired tab and dragging it to your current window. Once it's in its own window, you can minimize it and view it later.

3. Close multiple tabs at once to make space.

If you've got all the tabs you need pinned along the left side of your browser, you can close all the extraneous websites with one click. Simply right click on any given tab and select "Close all tabs to the right" or "Close other tabs" to get rid of numerous tabs at once.

4. Use keyboard shortcuts to save time.

Google has included numerous keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to move between Web pages in Chrome. For example, Ctrl+T opens a new tab, whereas Ctrl+W closes the current tab. You can also jump to the last tab in a window by pressing Ctrl+9. See all of Google's keyboard shortcuts for tabs and windows in Chrome here.

5. Download some Chrome extensions.

There are several extensions available for Chrome that are designed to keep your tab count under control. One of the most popular of these is TooManyTabs, which displays all of your currently open tabs in thumbnail view so that you can distinguish them. Similarly, the Tabman Tabs Manager extension keeps all of your open tabs in an easy-to-navigate drop-down menu that can be accessed by pressing a button next to the search bar in Chrome. OneTab also converts all of your currently open tabs into a list.