Google is now rolling-out a new feature to Chrome 81, and it’s ‘Tab Groups’. Frankly, this is something that should’ve been done 4 years ago, because it would’ve made my life in uni ten times easier. Tab Groups will be the biggest change to Chrome’s tabs systems, since the release of the browser 11 years ago.

The concept is relatively simple, it’s an easier way to track certain tabs that relate to something you’re doing. tab Groups organises your massive amount of tabs (you know who you are), to be open on one window, and with multiple buffers to indicate which tabs relate to what topic. Here’s how to do it:

• Right click on a tab
• Select ‘Add to new group’
• Move the tabs you want grouped, into said tab group.

You’ll then be able to customise it to some degree. You can name the group header, which comes in the form of seven coloured segments so you can keep track on which tabs relate to which research/sites. You’ll also be able to change the group colours, ungroup the tabs, and close all the tabs in the group, rather than closing them one, by one, by one. I’m sure you can relate.

It’s a simple, efficient way of managing tabs which I can definitely appreciate. At a time, I can have 2-3 windows up, with various research and tabs. Hopefully with this, I can move to a one window standard, but I’m not holding out on that part.

Chrome 81 is currently rolling out for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you don’t see the update yet, you can just manually enable the feature by using this flag in your Chrome address bar: chrome://flags/#tab-groups

From there, just enable the toggle, and relaunch Chrome, and you should be able to use Tab Groups.