
Over the past few years, I’ve accidentally fallen in love with Google Chrome’s Tab Groups feature. Color-coded anything meant to organize my life is just an OCD kid’s dream come true, and the company has this in spades. From labels to folders, and whatever in between, you could say I’ve somewhat “over-organized” my life.
Still, Tab Groups are an endearing feature that I’ve spent a lot of time using since their release in 2020. You can check out all of my coverage on them if you’re also a fan. Not everyone is a fan though, and some would prefer to use other tools from third parties to store and recall information for later. You may be a fan of the good old trustworthy bookmark system, and I respect that, but I’m a bit too stubborn and forward-thinking to use what’s worked for decades. So, here are five alternatives to Chrome’s Tab Groups that will give you the same or similar features without having to rely on Google to do the job.
Before we get started, just keep in mind that some of these alternatives will have features Tab Groups simply don’t like storing and showing groups on a New Tab Page. Google was working on the ability to house your collections of Tab Groups in the ‘Reading list‘ section of the Side Panel, but that was abandoned. In other instances, Tab Groups will have features that these don’t, like the ability to search and jump to them from the browser’s Tab Search function. My advice is to decide for yourself what features are most important to you and go from there!
Important: All extensions being discussed today (with the exception of “Toby for Chrome” and “Workona” have followed the Chrome Web Store’s ‘Privacy practices’ policy and have disclosed that they will not collect or use your personal data!
Tab Groups Extension
Looking the most like Tab Groups, this “Tab Groups Extension” is generically named, but a nearly 1-to-1 alternative to Google’s offering! If you don’t want to rely on the big G for its features (even though you’re probably using the Chrome browser), then this one is a great way to get the same benefits!
The only difference I can see is that an overview of all of your tabs and groups appears in a pop-up window which can be managed easily. Do keep in mind that to date, Google is still dragging its feet on the ability to save Tab Groups for later, so Guokai.dev is light years ahead of the search giant, apparently.
Toby Tab Manager
Quite possibly my favorite browser tab manager, Toby for Chrome was my first love when it comes to moving beyond bookmarks. Not only does saving things for later actually work, but it works really well. The New Tab Page (NTP) of Chrome is replaced by a Toby management dashboard where you can group tabs, tag them, drag and drop items, and more. It’s beautiful, functional, and efficient. Compared to everything else on this list, I would recommend that you try this out first.
The only thing it doesn’t do is well, “group” tabs visually in the browser header like Chrome’s offering does. In this way, it’s technically not a “Tab groups extension”, but in the sense that it does group them to store them and launch them all at once at a later time or date, it certainly is.
As you probably saw earlier in this article, Toby is the only extension listed here today that does collect and use personal information. If you’re concerned about how the company will use your data, I would avoid this one, but if you’re looking for the best tab manager and after reading its privacy policy decide that how they have chosen to make use of it doesn’t bother you so much or raise alarm, then I would say give it a try.
Tabox – Save and Share Tab Groups
Tabox is touted by its reviewers as the most powerful tab group manager, and its developer, Tabox, is quick to reply to feedback. It shares the same pop-up box for managing your tabs as the first extension discussed today, with the difference of being able to cloud sync them and use them across your devices.
To achieve this, Tabox stores your tab groups in your Google Drive account, which I seriously think Google itself could learn from. If the company used its popular account sync feature to show existing groups across your phone, Chromebook, desktop, and more, then it would still be my top pick, but Tabox is looking mighty appealing in light of this feature.
Oh, and here’s a nice perk – you can share tab collections with your friends and family. Additionally, you can import and export your collections, drag and drop them to rearrange them, and more.
Workona Tab Manager
Every time I do extension roundup articles, I have a handful of you reach out and tell me that I should cover Workona, but I keep forgetting. Today, this one is for you! Workona is very similar to Toby, not only in the fact that it’s an entire tab management dashboard for the New Tab Page, but also in that it collects some data.
To be fair, it only collects your browser history in order to collapse tab groups for later, whereas Toby collects nearly everything and seems like it wants your firstborn too. I love Toby, but I don’t really like this about it. Workona lets you organize your tabs into “workspaces” based on the projects you’re heading off or participating in, lets you use your workspaces on multiple devices via a backup and restore feature, and more!
As you can probably tell already, this one is more focused on being a management tool for businesses and not as much for individuals, but I’ve used it for the latter just fine and believe that you can too. If you are interested in using it for your organization, small team, or large company, one Chrome Web Store reviewer says it best by stating that Workona is in a category of its own and I’m inclined to agree!
There are many tools that claim to organize your tabs. The problem is that they don’t solve the root problem, how can you organize your thinking and increase your overall productivity. While Workona is technically a brower extension, I believe it belongs more in the category of productivity tools. Businesses and teams should consider adopting it across the board.
Michael Brauman, Chrome web store reviewer
Group Tabs
If you’re okay with missing out on the whole saving tab groups for later crazy and simply want a lightweight extension that lets you group tabs without Google being involved as much, then I’ve got something for you to check out. Named “Group Tabs”, this minimalistic add-on does exactly what it says exactly how Google does. Don’t be fooled though, there’s a bit more to it than that.
Group Tabs has the ability to automatically create a tab group from tabs that are on the same domain or website! It does ignore subdomains though, which is a mystery to me, but okay. One other thing you may not like is that if a tab exists as the only one in its domain and is up on your browser, it will be placed into its own tab group.
Tab Groups are meant to be “grouped”, but with one tab in said group, it kind of defeats the purpose unless you’re that retentive about organization. To each his or her own, I suppose, but it works as advertised and respects your privacy, so it could add a bit of extra spice to your life if you decide to check it out.
Final thoughts
Honestly, there are innumerable Tab Group extensions that you can check out on the Chrome Web Store, and I would encourage you to do so. Just be aware enough before installing anything to check the Privacy practices tab and make sure that the developer isn’t out to sell your data.
If you do stick with Google’s Chrome Tab Groups feature, which in and of itself is simple enough, you can always power it up with something like “Auto Collapse for Tab Groups“, which automatically collapses any groups that are not in focus. It’s always worth it to find new and interesting add-ons to extend what Google gives you out of the box, and it can be fun too. Happy hunting!
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