Google Chrome users who regularly find themselves sifting through dozens of tabs will be overjoyed with a forthcoming upgrade for the hugely-successful web browser. That’s because Google is looking to implement a new tab search feature to allow users to hunt for the tab they’re looking for without clicking through each individual window.
The new feature, which is currently being tested in the Chrome Canary beta version of the browser, is the latest in a series of improvements designed to make tabs more efficient. Google has already implemented tab grouping, which lets you colour-code open tabs for work, pleasure, or a number of other categories. Tab scrolling, which lets users spin through the carousel of open tabs using the scroll-wheel on their mouse, was already introduced pretty recently in a bid to make it easier to manage a large number of open tabs.
With the latest option, Tab Search, Google has added a new symbol next to the + icon used to open a new tab. Clicking the new button displays a search menu, similar to the one you’d use to search for text on a specific webpage, that begins to show tabs as they match your search. This works in a similar way to the way Google attempts to predict the search or website you’re looking for as you begin to type into the Omnibus (the web address and search box combo at the top of Chrome browser windows).
As soon as it surfaces the tab you’re looking for, you can click on the result to be thrown immediately to that open tab. Given that search is Google’s speciality, you don’t have to be exact when you’re searching for the content of a misplaced open tab. if you’re in the ballpark, chances are, Google will know what you’re looking for.
The new Tab Search feature, which was first spotted by the excellent team at blog TechDows, should make it easy to quickly flick back between tabs. As more of us work and study at home, these productivity features will be crucial to help everyone keep track of their personal shopping tabs, group chats with family members, research for work, and more… without having to shut everything down at the end of the day and start fresh.
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Unfortunately for those drowning in a sea of nondescript open tabs… there’s no word on when Google will roll out this feature to Chrome users worldwide. After suspending new features in order to keep its browser – which is comfortably the most popular on the planet, accounting for more than 60 percent of all desktop web traffic – stable as people adjusted to working from home, Google has started to resume work on exciting new additions.
Given that Tab Search is now included in Chrome Canary, it could roll out to browsers soon. Of course, there’s no guarantee. Companies like Google are constantly investigating new technologies, testing new options with beta testers, but not all of these make into the finished product. So, it’s worth tempering expectations a little.
