If your daily workflow involves keeping dozens of browser tabs open simultaneously, finding the exact page you need can become a frustrating exercise. When tabs become so small that you can no longer read their titles, productivity drops significantly.
To solve this, Google Chrome introduced “Tab Groups,” a powerful built-in feature that allows you to bundle related tabs together, colour-code them, and collapse them into a single label to save space on your screen.
How to Create a New Tab Group
Creating a tab group takes only a few seconds and requires no third-party extensions.
- Right-click on any open tab at the top of your Chrome browser.
- From the dropdown menu, select Add tab to new group.
- A small configuration menu will appear. Type a descriptive name for your group (e.g., “Research”, “Work Emails”, “Travel Plans”).
- Select a colour for the group from the palette provided.
- Press the Enter key or click anywhere outside the menu to save it.
You will now see a coloured label sitting directly to the left of the tab you just added.
How to Add and Remove Tabs from a Group
Once your group is created, adding more tabs to it is completely intuitive.
- Drag and Drop: The easiest way to add a tab to a group is to simply click and hold the tab, then drag it over the coloured line of your group. When the tab is outlined in the group’s colour, release your mouse.
- Right-Click Menu: Right-click an unassigned tab, select Add tab to group, and choose your existing group from the list.
- Removing a Tab: To remove a tab from a group, click and drag it completely outside of the group’s coloured boundary. Alternatively, right-click the tab and select Remove from group.
How to Collapse and Expand Tab Groups
The biggest advantage of tab groups is their ability to free up space on your browser’s top bar.
To collapse a group, simply click on the coloured Group Name label once. All the tabs inside that group will instantly slide behind the label, hiding them from view and freeing up significant space.
To access the tabs again, click the Group Name label a second time, and they will expand back out. You can keep multiple groups collapsed at the same time, allowing you to manage 50+ tabs without your browser feeling cluttered.
How to Save a Tab Group
By default, if you close Google Chrome, your tab groups will disappear. However, you can save them so they persist across sessions.
- Right-click the coloured Group Name label.
- Toggle the switch next to Save group.
A small icon for your saved group will now appear permanently on your Chrome bookmarks bar. You can close all the tabs in the group, and whenever you need them again, just click the icon on your bookmarks bar to instantly reopen the entire group.
