How KonMari Tabs Your Browser
I like to write about different methods of organizing your web browser because my own Chrome browser looks like a tab farm. It never fails. No matter how often I dump all my open tabs into some kind of archive, the problem – in the form of more than 20 browser tabs – reappears after a week or two.
The other day a thought occurred to me. What if I am doing it wrong? What if, instead of constantly trying to deal with my crowded tabs, I need to reverse the order of the problem? I need to not allow myself to open so many tabs, which then forces me to either be more selective about what I view, or bookmark it and move on.
We’ve previously looked at extensions like xTab (Chrome) that let you limit the number of tabs your browser can display at any time. (If you’re using Firefox, check out Max Tabs – a similar deal.)
I have nothing against the extension, especially its “kill old tabs you are not using” technique, but instead I am drawn to the Queued Tab Limiter (Chrome). Install it and open its options to specify how many tabs you want to allow for Chrome. Once you hit this limit, any new tabs you open will be added to the background queue. When you close the tabs, the queued tabs will pop up to replace them. It’s a nice and elegant way to deal with too many tabs.
However, the Queued Tab Limiter extension has one important caveat. It cannot prevent you from opening new blank tabs. If you follow this path and type in the address bar any website you want to visit, the extension won’t be able to stop you. It will keep queuing up the tabs you open from websites like when you hold CTRL and click a hyperlink, but that’s not superhuman. This is a simple extension.
Also, while the extension will save queues between sessions, I would not recommend using it to save all the sites you plan to end up visiting. For it is much better (and safer) this extension as OneTab , although the inclusion of the browser into the “Limiter tabs queue” means that you will probably want to use the good old favorites more than anything else. After all, you are unlikely to have many tabs open at any given time.