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One thing I’ve learned about Chrome users across the board is that most of you all love – LOVE – to leave tabs open. Whether it is a laissez-faire-like approach to leaving email inboxes with thousands of unopened messages lying dormant or simply just an intense focus on the here and now that leads so many users to open one tab after another with no regard to organization or taxation on system resources, the result is the same: for whatever the reason, users love to keep tons of tabs open and things can get messy very, very quickly.
An upcoming feature that is currently in the Canary Channel of Chrome and Chrome OS should go a long way towards getting users to the tab they need when they need it, though. The new feature is simply called tab search and does exactly what it says, allowing users to quickly search any open tabs in Chrome for just the right one. As you open more and more tabs in an individual instance of Chrome, those tabs shrink smaller and smaller until there’s little else but a favicon showing up top. Trying to find that one Chrome Unboxed tab amidst the chaos can be taxing, but with this new feature, it is but a search away.
You can see in the video above how simple this all is and, when it does make its way down the channels and arrive in the Stable Channel of both Chrome and Chrome OS, how helpful it will be to the tab hoarders out there. Sure, there are tab groups if you are into color-coding and grouping things, but my gut tells me that the vast majority of users who end up with dozens of open tabs aren’t the type that care a whole lot about fussing with organizational tools.
Instead, this method is more of a there-when-you-need-it solution that works via search and feels much more like a Google solution to chaotic tab management. There’s even a keyboard shortcut (CTRL + SHIFT + E) coming that will allow a very fast search query to happen and get you right to the tab you are looking for with just a few clicks. I imagine for those of you who end up with cluttered desktops, this could really be a huge productivity booster. We’ll be keeping an eye on the feature and as it gets down into the more-stable channels of Chrome and Chrome OS, we’ll keep you updated.
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SOURCE: Chrome Story
