Two Chrome settings tamed one writer's 200 open tabs on Android

Android Police writer Akshay Bhalla says two built-in Chrome settings tamed a habit of keeping more than 200 tabs open on his Android phone. He used tab groups and a setting that moves old tabs out of sight. He reports that links became easier to find, and that his phone ran better and held its battery longer.

The problem

Bhalla says he often piles up tabs while shopping around events like Black Friday and the holidays. Add work browsing, and he passes 150 tabs easily. Closing them by hand made him anxious. Bookmarks felt too permanent and needed even more sorting. So the tabs stayed, and finding one link in the pile took too much time.

Tab groups

Tab groups stack related tabs into folder-like cards inside Chrome's tab switcher. Bhalla made groups for shopping, research and casual browsing, such as why beavers matter to an ecosystem or the history of bagels. He ended up with 10 to 12 groups. A short name and a color make a group quicker to open. Chrome also syncs the groups across his devices, though he says sync sometimes hiccups.

Inactive tabs

The second setting moves tabs you have not opened in 7, 14 or 21 days into a separate section. Bhalla chose 14 days. He says this cleared out the old tabs he never got around to sorting. He also says these tabs had been using up RAM, the short-term memory a phone shares among its apps, and that he noticed better performance and battery life right away.

How to turn it on

• Tap the three-dot menu in Chrome, then Settings.
• Choose Advanced, then Tabs and tab groups.
• Tap Move to inactive tabs and pick 7, 14 or 21 days.

What to keep in mind

This is one person's experience, and the article gives no test numbers for speed or battery. Inactive tabs are not deleted. They sit in their own section, and you can open a site again from there. Bhalla's advice is simple: if your tab list feels like a maze, try both settings together.