Imagine you are reading a long Wikipedia article, and you click a link that takes you to a completely different page. You want to keep reading the new page, but you also don’t want to lose your exact place in the original article.
You could open a new tab and manually search for the original Wikipedia page again, but Google Chrome offers a much faster solution: the Duplicate Tab feature.
How to Duplicate a Tab
Duplicating a tab takes less than a second and does not require you to copy or paste any URLs.
- Move your mouse up to the tab you want to clone at the top of the browser.
- Right-click directly on the tab.
- From the drop-down menu that appears, select Duplicate.
Chrome will instantly open a brand new tab immediately to the right of your current tab. This new tab is an exact clone of the webpage you were just looking at.
Why Duplicating is Better Than Copying the URL
You might wonder why you wouldn’t just copy the URL, open a new blank tab, and paste it. Duplicating is superior for three massive reasons:
- It Copies Your History: When you right-click and duplicate a tab, Chrome doesn’t just copy the page; it copies the entire back-and-forward history of that specific tab. If you duplicate a tab, you can click the “Back” arrow on the new cloned tab and see the exact Google Search results that brought you there in the first place.
- It Retains Your Scroll Position: If you are halfway down a massive 10,000-word document and you duplicate the tab, the new tab will instantly load directly at the exact paragraph you were reading. It does not force you to start from the top of the page again.
- It Works for Form Data: If you are filling out a complex web form or manipulating a web-based calculator, duplicating the tab will often copy over the variables and text you have already typed into the boxes, saving you from starting over.
The Keyboard Shortcut Alternative
If you don’t want to use your mouse, you can achieve a similar result using a hidden keyboard trick.
Click inside the main address bar to highlight the URL, and then press Alt + Enter (on Windows) or Command + Enter (on Mac). This tells Chrome to open whatever URL is currently in the address bar in a brand new background tab.
Note: The keyboard shortcut only copies the URL; it does not retain your scrolling position or your back-arrow history like the true “Right-Click > Duplicate” method does.