Still a work in progress, though
After testing tab groups in various forms for what seemed like ages, Google finally rolled out desktop support for the feature with Chrome Beta version 83 — allowing users to aggregate similar tabs together and label them with a custom name and color. Soon after, the tech giant added the option to collapse tab groups for more space. We’ve been hearing of a new option to save tab groups, and it looks like Google’s making progress with the feature.
Redditor u/Leopeva64-2 spotted the changes to tab groups in Chrome Canary version 101. We first saw glimpses of the new feature — albeit in an incomplete form — back in October with Chrome 95. You had to enable the Tab group save flag to access it, but turning it on did nothing (as shown above). With this new experience, right-clicking a tab group brings up an option to save it as before. However, toggling it on or off will now automatically add the group to or remove it from the bookmarks bar (see image below).
Like Chrome 95, this feature is still experimental and far from complete — currently, you cannot click or drag the saved groups. That said, we’ve known how the function will behave for some time now. When it fully rolls out, you’ll be able to interact with saved tab groups in many ways, including opening, closing, and recalling them. The latter involves navigating to the overflow menu in the top right corner and hovering over the History tab to see the Recently Closed option — your closed tab group will be here.
We don’t know when the feature will arrive on the stable Chrome channel. But when it does, there’s reason to believe that it’ll be part of a broader bookmark overhaul dubbed Power Bookmarks. Reports suggest that the so-called Power Bookmarks will supercharge bookmarks, tab groups, and recent searches, serving as a central hub for curating your activities on the web.
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