Imperfect

tab group saving

Intro

Google Chrome and some Chromium-based web browsers recently implemented the tab groups page feature. While I don't use tab groups on desktop but find them beneficial for my mobile workflow, the new page is causing issues for myself and other users. Automatic syncing also seems to present issues even though I don't use it myself. If you understand how tab groups and the tab group page works, start with the "TL;DR" and proceed as desired. Otherwise, start from "Creating tab groups".

TL;DR

Apply these mobile fixes (and their desktop equivalents) to Google Chrome:

Creating tab groups

Tab groups, which take the appearance of a tab but contain multiple tabs, are created on mobile via one of the two following options:

Open in new tab in group

When viewing a single webpage in a browser tab, tap and hold a link you want to visit. When the context menu shows up, tap the Open in new tab in group menu item to create a tab group. A bar will show at the bottom of your screen, indicating that you are now within a tab group. The bar shows a left chevron button, right plus button, and a row of tab buttons showing both websites' favicons in the center.

Merge tabs

View the tabs page by tapping the navbar's tabs button: the square button with a number (or a smiley face if you have 100+ tabs open) inside. If you have 2+ open tabs, you can create a tab group from the tabs page. Tap and hold a tab until it shrinks in size. Then, drag it into another tab to create a tab group. A popup asks for an optional group name and icon color with the ability to save those details if desired. An aside: you can even merge tabs into groups or groups into groups.

Auto save

Sometimes when you merge tabs, the popup will also say that "Your tab groups automatically save", which applies to both methods. This is frustrating for me as I don't want nor need automatically saved tab groups. Where do they get saved to? The newly introduced tab group page with the tab grid icon, which sits to the right of the tab page.

Managing tab groups

Except for tab groups deleted from their context menu in their popup or the tabs page, the tab groups page shows a list of all saved tab groups. Most of my recent problems with tab groups stem from this newly added page. Questions arise such as:

Other questions unrelated to the tab group page include:

The most relevant active discussion I found on this issue was a Google Chrome Help Community post on Disable tab group saving.

Carsten described their issue which parallels my own:

I often gather related links in a tab group in Chrome, both on Desktop and on Android. This is no problem on Desktop, since there it has an explicit save toggle that enables the extended features of saving and sharing between devices.

On Android, this is not the case, and all my groups are always saved and shared. This is annoying as hell, since those groups have purely temporary character for me, and when I close them, I want them gone. Fully, and forever.

Is there any way to get rid of saved groups on Chrome for Android once and for all?

I treat my tabs and groups like how Carsten treats his. Besides undoing accidental tab or group closures, I am finished with them once they are closed. Having to think about and maintain unwanted saved groups distracts me from my browsing experience.

Serkan, a Google product expert (read: fellow user), replied to Carsten:

Unfortunately, there is no way to disable tab group saving on Chrome for Android. However, there are a few workarounds that you can try. One workaround is to create a new Google account specifically for using Chrome on Android. This way, you can create and use tab groups without them being saved to your main Google account. Another workaround is to use a different browser on Android. There are a number of browsers available that do not save tab groups, such as Firefox and Brave. Finally, you can also try uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome. This will reset all of your settings, including the tab group saving setting. I hope this helps!

The kicker is that tab group saving on Chrome cannot be disabled. Using a new Google account or uninstalling and reinstalling Chrome only creates a blank slate for future tab groups to automatically populate the tab groups page. While other browsers might not have this severe of a problem, I would not expect Chrome to have it in the first place since it is Google's flagship browser.

An anonymous user later replied to Carsten, hinting at a regression for desktop:

This feature is automatic in Windows Chrome, and I see no option to disable auto addition to the tab group. It looks like the save option under the tab group was removed, and the auto-save was added. I just cannot figure out who thought this was a great feature to automatically add opened windows to the tab group.

I can understand benefits associated with automatically saving tab groups for either form factor while acknowledging that choice in the matter would be very welcome.

Other locked Google Chrome Help Community discussions include Can't disable tab groups and Tab Groups saving sucks - can't disable. if you want to read separate accounts of similar tab group issues.

Outro

I hope that compiling these points and suggestions kickstarts progress toward a better browser user experience. Affected users providing more feedback to Google, providing more visibility on the issue, or arming them with the above information all resemble great steps. If you experience the same issue as described above, let me know.

I suppose this is also a call to use browsers with more sensible decisions around tab group saving, like Serkan's suggestions of Firefox and Brave. That said, I think the best option would be giving users maximal choice in the matter. If you haven't already, try checking out my "TL;DR" suggestions and "Managing tab groups" questions, then note if I'm missing anything that would solve this problem better.

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