2 tasty new tab tricks for Chrome on Android

Quick: How many tabs do you have open in Chrome on your Android phone right now?

• If the answer is zero, you’re an animal. Seek immediate psychiatric help.
• If the answer is one to two, you’re obsessively organized and a model Android device owner. Go get yourself a cookie as a reward (browser-based or snickerdoodle — your choice)!
• If the answer is three to seven, sorry, pal — but you’ve got a minor problem.
• And if the answer is eight or more, you’re an animal. Seek immediate psychiatric help.

Personally, I tend to fall in either the first or the last category. Occasionally, when I’m feeling the itch to organize, I’ll go through and file all my opened tabs into somewhere I might actually see ’em or find ’em again later.

But more often, I tend to tap on stuff when I encounter it, then leave it sitting open with the thought that I’ll get back to it later. (Surprise twist: I rarely do.) It’s not a great system, and it ends up leading to endless clutter and confusion.

No matter which Chrome tab trend describes you, your browser tab philosophy could almost certainly use some added intelligence. And you’d never know it, but Google’s got a pair of promising new options to accomplish exactly that within the Chrome Android arena.

All you’ve gotta do is know where to look.

[Want even more advanced Android knowledge? Check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse to learn tons of time-saving tricks.]

4 steps to Android tab enlightenment

All right — ready to crank up your Chrome Android tab IQ?

I promise it’s easy:

1. Open up Chrome on your Android device — any Android device, no matter who made it or how old it might be.
2. Tap the three-dot menu icon in the browser’s upper-right corner and select “Settings.”
3. Look for the recently added “Tabs” section, beneath the “Advanced” header on that screen. (Depending on your screen size, you might have to scroll down a bit before you see it.)
4. Tap that “Tabs” line, then bask in the glory of these two new tab treasures:

JR Raphael, IDG

(Ooh, ahh, etc.)

If you tap “Inactive,” you’ll see a series of choices for exactly how Chrome should help manage your inactive tabs for you:

• First, you can instruct it to consider a tab “inactive” if you haven’t interacted with it in seven, 14, or 21 days — after which point it’ll be moved into a special new “Inactive tabs” area of the Chrome Android app (visible within the browser’s tab switcher area, if you tap the outlined number at within the address bar or swipe downward on that area of the screen).
• And second, you can activate (or opt not to active) two other advanced options for inactive tabs:
  • Chrome can automatically move any duplicate tabs into that same “Inactive tabs” area for you, if you flip the switch for the first option.
  • And Chrome can flat-out close any tabs that have been inactive for 60 days, if you activate the other.

JR Raphael, IDG

Now, back out in the main Chrome Android Tabs menu, we’ve got one more new possibility to address: “Automatically open tab groups from other devices.”

This nifty li’l ditty does exactly what you’d expect: If you fire up a new tab group in Chrome on a computer or a different Android device, it’ll — y’know — automatically open on this Android device, too. Potentially handy in the right sort of situation, wouldn’t ya say?

(And if you aren’t familiar yet with Chrome tab groups, you can get an in-depth look at how they work on the desktop front here. The setup is essentially the same on Android: In that Chrome tab overview area, you can just drag and drop different tabs on top of each other to group ’em. Then, once you have a group, you can tap it to view all the tabs within it, rename it, or assign it a custom color.)

One last note that isn’t obvious from this settings section: With or without that auto-opening option, you can also manually find and open tab groups from other devices within the Chrome Android browser.

Just go back to that tab overview screen — once more, by tapping the outlined number on Chrome’s address bar or swiping downward on that area of the screen — then tap the four-square icon directly next to the tab number count at the top of the screen.

And there, you’ll see a list of all your recent tab groups, including active groups from other devices — so long as you’re signed into Chrome with the same Google account in all of those places.

JR Raphael, IDG

That’s it! Enjoy the new tab tricks up your sleeve, and see if maybe, just maybe, you can use ’em to cut out some of your Chrome clutter and achieve a whole new level of Android browsing serenity.

Get even more advanced Android knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone!