Rename Chrome Windows so You Don’t Lose Them
Tab overload is real, as evidenced by the crowded bars of the Edge and Chrome browsers. What about … overloading the window? If you’re the type of person who tries to organize their browser by highlighting different windows for each tab or group of tabs, Google now lets you rename those windows so you can switch between them more easily.
Warning? After you’re done browsing for the day, you need to make sure you always close Chrome using the three-dot menu > Exit. This will close all of your open windows at once, but as long as you’ve turned on ” Continue where you left off” in Chrome Settings > Privacy & Security , they’ll all reappear – custom names and everything else – when you launch your browser again.
It’s easy to set a custom name for each Chrome browser window. First, make sure you have the latest version of Chrome installed (via the three-dot menu > Help> About Google Chrome ). After that, all you have to do is right-click anywhere in the free space on the tab bar to open the context menu with the new “Name Window …” option.
Click on it and you can give the window your own name:
I’m using Windows 10 right now, which means this name appears like in my Alt + Tab view:
And also a preview of windows on the Windows 10 taskbar when hovering over the Chrome icon:
If you close a specific Chrome browser window permanently, the custom name will disappear. This makes sense, given that you’ve essentially eliminated this “instance” of the browser. If you want to keep separate browser windows persistent, you should really just set up separate Chrome profiles on your desktop or laptop, which will give you completely independent versions of Chrome that you can bring up with just a few clicks.
For example, I have a “personal” Chrome that I use by default for most of my browsing, and a separate “work” Chrome that is configured to work with all of my Lifehacker content. It has all the tabs I use for work, including my email, the stories I write, and the stories I research, and it isn’t jammed with my many open tabs, for example, for mastering Stardew Valley . (These game tabs are also not tied to my work account in any way, which is probably what my bosses and I prefer.)
If you find it difficult to bring up the right context menu by right clicking on the tab bar, you can also access the same “Name Window …” by hovering over the Chrome icon on the Windows 10 taskbar and right clicking any of the open chrome windows. On macOS, just click Window> Name Window if you want a super-easy way to rename your current instance of Chrome.