Chrome’s new Declutter tool could soon help manage your 100+ open tabs
Recent evidence suggests Chrome on Android may be getting a new tab clearing tool that will help people manage so many open tabs. Hints of this feature have been discovered in lines of code on Google’s Chromium platform by 9To5Google. It is not known exactly how Tab Declutter will work, although there is enough information to paint a picture.
According to the report, tabs that have not been used for a long time are “automatically” put away in an archive. You can then go to the archive editorsee what it says and decide for yourself whether you want to delete or restore a tab.
Not only can Tab Declutter help people manage a cluttered browser, but it can also improve Chrome’s performance. All those open tabs can eat up a device’s RAM, making things run slower.
This isn’t the first time Google has worked to improve tab management for its browser. In January, the company implemented an organizer tool harnessing the power of AI to instantly group tabs based on a particular topic.
In fact, these efforts date back to 2020, when the tech giant began developing a feature that would do just that recommend closing certain tabs if they have been alone for a long time. It was similar to the new Declutter tool, but much less aggressive, as it wouldn’t archive anything. In the end, nothing came of it, but it seems like Google is revisiting this old idea.
Speculate on all open tabs
As 9To5Google notes, this has the potential to “become one of the most annoying features” the company has ever created. Imagine if Chrome made tabs you wanted to look at disappear without letting you know. It can get frustrating pretty quickly.
Furthermore, would it be possible to set a time limit for when an unused page can be put away? Will there be an exception list that tells Chrome to leave certain websites alone? We’ll have the answer if and when this feature eventually goes live.
We have no word on when Tab Declutter will launch. It is unknown if Chrome on iOS will receive a similar upgrade to the Chromium edition. It’s possible that Android devices will get dibs first, and iPhones second, or that the iPhone will be left out of consideration in some regions that don’t have a Chromium-based browser.
9To5Google speculates that the update will arrive in early May as part of Chrome 125. This seems a bit early as the update is still in the middle of development. Late summer to early fall is more plausible, but we could be completely wrong. We’ll just have to wait.
Until we get more news, check out Ny Breaking’s roundup of the best Chromebooks for 2024.