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You know how when you get to 10+ tabs open in your browser (in this case Chrome) and you can't tell which tab is which anymore? I'm sure there are some good extension or something - what's the best solution to this problem?

enter image description here

Hennes
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kenwarner
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14 Answers14

84

Start Chrome's task manager, and then you can double click on the title of whatever tab you need.

Microsoft Windows

Hit Shift+Esc to bring up the Chrome task manager.

Alternatively, on Chrome's More tools menu, select Task manager (source)

Mac OS X

On the Chrome Window menu, select Task Manager.

ChromeOS

Hit Shift+Esc to bring up the Chrome task manager.

Alternatively, on Chrome's More tools menu, select Task manager (source)

cookiemonster
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jonsca
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    Thanks! I'm in a VDI environment, and all my extensions are unavailable due to a synchronization problem. It's good to see a built-in solution. Normally, I would be using [Session Buddy](http://www.sessionbuddy.com) to manage this. – GuitarPicker Jun 08 '16 at 15:52
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    It should be pointed out that this solution does show you all tabs across all instances of Chrome, different profiles or otherwise. I have three profiles running at work, and that makes the task manager a bit overloaded with unrelated tab groups. Could be very useful for those that do want this behavior, of course. – shmup Jul 20 '16 at 15:01
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    This does not work in Chrome on Mac OSX (Yosemite). – aqn Jul 25 '16 at 15:14
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    Though Chrome's Task Manager still exists on OSX and presumably all we would need to do is add a key binding for it. – Joe Atzberger Jul 28 '16 at 20:18
  • VERY helpful: **double-click on the tab title** – Bob Stein Aug 17 '16 at 15:03
  • On Mac OS X, to add shortcut, check this: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/xz-9TlEwwCc – wesamly Aug 17 '17 at 07:52
  • Chrome is a bit more careful about wasting system resources these days. The list is no longer complete. Unused tabs disappear from the it after a while. – hashchange Feb 12 '18 at 16:23
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This works in all versions of Chrome, on Mac, Linux and Windows:

chrome://inspect/#pages

Chrome inspect tabs screenshot

Unfortunately, this won't show tabs that haven't been used in a while. But for recent tabs, no need to install any extension, and you can also search in the tab names - great when you have many tabs. To open a tab, just click Inspect.

Dan Dascalescu
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  • I know this wasn't in the original question, but is there a way to open the tab from the Inspect Pages page? – wisbucky May 01 '15 at 11:16
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    @wisbucky: of course, you click Inspect. (You can close the Inspect side bar by pressing F12 on Windows or Cmd + Opt + I on Mac). – Dan Dascalescu May 01 '15 at 20:53
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    Ah, I found the issue. It doesn't switch tabs if Chrome Developer Tools is undocked. After I redocked CDT, then this method worked. – wisbucky May 02 '15 at 00:49
  • "Yuck", unfortunately it opens the entire inspect element screen over my screen and many more keystrokes required, but OK for extensionless. – David d C e Freitas May 07 '15 at 19:49
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    This was very useful to me for getting a text list of all of the tabs open in Chrome. Use it after teaching a class and opening a bunch of tabs to collect that list for easily sharing. Thanks – justinxreese Sep 01 '15 at 21:26
  • Does not work for Chrome on `iPad`. It's the latest build at this time of writing. `chrome://inspect` gives... "**This site can't be reached** The webpage at chrome://inspect/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address." – Glenn Slayden Jan 30 '17 at 21:14
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    Just like the task manager, this does not list tabs which haven't been used for a while (as of 2018). – hashchange Feb 12 '18 at 16:26
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Install TabsOutliner extension -

The ultimate windows & tabs manager for Chrome:

enter image description here

Not only it is show all the tabs and windows, it allow to add notes to them, freely reorganize everything, rescue all of this on Chrome crashes and give possibility to unload tabs without deleting them from tree - "in place" - very cool and handy, a lifesaver for me, and for any other tab addict.

omnray
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  • What's cool: it supports splitting and merging groups of tabs into windows. – Vadzim Apr 07 '17 at 16:15
  • For me, this appears better than Vimium. Both Chrome store pages provide explanatory videos. The videos appear to say that Vimium provides a simple list, while TabsOutliner offers hierarchical (i.e., outline) structure. In the list, tabs opened from a page become a subset of that page. A new Chrome window has its own new list. You can still have the list even with no Chrome windows open, and can restore only selected tabs if desired. And more. – Ray Woodcock Jul 26 '20 at 12:51
  • @RayWoodcock I use TabsOutliner *and* Vimium - `shift-f` in Vimium finds a tab quickly, as well as all the other stuff, and TabsOutliner allows me to organise, close, sleep and copy tabs. – drkvogel Apr 11 '21 at 12:45
  • In TabsOutliner I particularly like the way you can copy tabs to text with `ctrl+c` or right-click, copy; in a format that is almost Markdown syntax, which I can paste into my notes which are Markdown format. I then have to add square brackets around the page title manually to make it a link in, or I made a Chrome extension to do this: [drkvogel/linkify](https://github.com/drkvogel/linkify) – drkvogel Apr 11 '21 at 12:48
23

I've been using the Quick Tabs extension for a while, does a good job.

Quick Tabs

kenwarner
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  • This one would have been perfect if it weren't so slow :( – andrecarlucci Mar 31 '14 at 14:36
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    i've been using https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabman-tabs-manager/hgmnkflcjcohihpdcniifjbafcdelhlm which is a pretty similar solution. maybe won't be as slow for you? – kenwarner Mar 31 '14 at 14:38
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    Nice, I added `ctrl+q` as the shortcut for this in chrome://extensions/ – KCD Jun 30 '16 at 00:15
  • Quick Tabs is fantastic. Using this with `Ctrl-Space` will drastically improve my productivity in the browser. – treehead Aug 05 '16 at 18:34
  • Take a look at [Taptab](https://crx.dam.io/ext/dlcdopfmnappdjilkgaaajocplcjnnlg.html). It's the simplest solution for the problem. Just a button that drops down the list of tabs for the window. Now it's archived so, it's a bit more difficult to install, but worth it. – user77376 Nov 09 '16 at 09:56
  • I had to wait for about 40 secs for this to bring up the list of tabs 63 tabs. Needless to say it's unusable like this. – Okneloper Jan 09 '17 at 11:54
  • It allows to [assign hotkeys](https://www.howtogeek.com/127162/how-to-create-custom-keyboard-shortcuts-for-browser-actions-and-extensions-in-google-chrome/) for tabs popup and prev/next tab switch in LRU order. – Vadzim Apr 07 '17 at 16:29
  • Can I recommend [QuicKey](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quickey-%E2%80%93-the-quick-tab-s/ldlghkoiihaelfnggonhjnfiabmaficg) instead of "Quick Tabs"? It's super slick and responsive, it looks better IMO, it has its own hotkeys, and the developer is very responsive on GitHub. Quick Tabs is... very bloated IIRC, to the point where it kept causing system freezes. – Will Chen Mar 16 '21 at 10:15
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The Chrome extension called Vimium will let you search and go to any of your open tabs if you press T, amongst many other things that it can do.

http://vimium.github.io

David d C e Freitas
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12

Mac OS X (with trackpad)

In the search bar write:

about:flags

and click enter. Now enable Tab Overview.

Tab Overview

A three-finger swipe will now reveal something like this:

More tabs

Here's 20 tabs for good measure:

20 tabs

It works really well. I can't browse without it these days.

boehj
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10

As of 2021, there is a native Chrome feature that allows you to scroll through all of your open chrome tabs (as well as some recently closed ones).

To access it, click on the dropdown arrow next to the minimize tab button. enter image description here

It will open up a scrollable dropdown with all tabs open in Chrome.

enter image description here

Spyre
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3

Type about:flags into the address bar, and then enable Side Tabs:

Adds a "Use Side Tabs" entry to the tab strip's context menu. Use this to toggle between tabs on top (default) and tabs on the side. Useful on widescreen monitors.

enter image description here

sblair
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1

Another altenative with expose-like functionality:

TooManyTabs For Chrome

Features include:

  • Bird's eye view of all opened tabs
  • Clear preview of each tab's content (fills up gradually as you use)
  • Instant tab search
  • Sort tabs by creation time, domain or title
  • Restore recently closed tabs
  • Suspend idle tabs and save memory, organize with custom columns
  • Custom themes

Bonus

How to Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts For Any Extension in Google Chrome

Vadzim
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1

I personally prefer an overview of the windows as columns, especially on a wider screen. I used to use Cluster, but because of lack of support I have now switched to the TabManager.io Chrome extension.

enter image description here

holmberd
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0

Go to History. There you'll see the list of opened tabs if you have synced chrome with google account on both the computers.

Firoz
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my favourite chrome app for listing all tabs: fast tab switcher.

象嘉道
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0

The OneTab extension is pretty great. It consolidates all tabs into a single tab that then acts as a dynamic tab manager page so you can reorder, reopen, close, save, etc.

thkemp
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0

I created a simple extension: console

  • It's lightweight
  • Completely free

for watch tab's title

typing: list or ls on the input box. done! (clear screen cls)

There are some other features. If you are interested, you can download and typing the help to see.

Carson
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