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Ask HN: How to deal with hundreds of open browser tabs

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Ask HN: How to deal with hundreds of open browser tabs

#1

Post by getcrunk »

Im sure many of the people on here have the same issue as me of having hundreds of tabs open. I use windows virtual desktops and occasionally even different browsers or profiles to segment further. but that's managing the problem. how do I stop it at its root? What have you guys found that works.

A typical situation unfolds as follows. I open my core set of windows/tabs to do work or personal. then for either scenario i need to go on a tangent but still need the old stuff open for when i need to go back but then i don't finish tangent 1 and then tanget 2 starts ... and then I have 300+ tabs in chrome and 200+ in ff. the only way it resets is when the browser crashes and looses all its data. which is rare but happens. and adding in the virtual desktops compounded the issue, cus ill reserve on desktop for a certain category of stuff then not go back to it for a while and now I'm opening more virtual desktops

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with hundreds of open browser tabs

#6

Post by jaredsohn »

I started using the xTab extension which automatically closes all but a user-defined number of tabs (have it set to 20) and it hasn't bothered me. If there is a pin you don't want to close automatically (such as an online meeting) you can pin it so it doesn't close automatically.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with hundreds of open browser tabs

#7

Post by chillingeffect »

firefox-centric: At the very least I recommend getting to know the control-pageup-pagedown commands.

Also use move to start and end quite a bit. I put basic stuff like email, calendar, at the start. social media next, then all my 100's of reseraches grow ot the right.

Also get familar with sliding them around into groups and saving them by date. And use control-B and control-H to get nimble with finding things.

Also get famliar with using folders in the toolbar. that helps me quickly open groups so I feel safer closing them all.

And don't be afraid to move a group of tabs to a new window if they have the same theme. Treat them like index cards and make use of their mobility.

one thing I really wish for would be a "switch to previously-viewed tab"

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with hundreds of open browser tabs

#8

Post by ooouuiii »

Not sure if it solves OP problem, but personally I am using 42 Chrome user profiles. If You don't work with that yet, You then can switch the profile from chrome's toolbar and it opens new chrome instance with independent cookies, local-storage etc. So I have profile e.g. for RabbitMQ with about 20 tabs about things I found more persistently interesting. Like some documentation parts, stack-overflow questions etc. Everytime I am learning something new I have file with notes and then separate profile for this thing only. For the more not-so-organized things I have adhoc profile, which usually does not bother me to close all tabs in.
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