Update your Edge Chromium browser today and you’ll get a fun little prompt asking if you’d like to enable the browser’s new vertical tabs feature. As someone who is always keen to try new things, I decided to follow my browser’s suggestion.
This of course gave me a pretty monstrous list of tabs on the left side of my browser. (Yes I really need to suppress interference– This is just a small excerpt from the list that fills the entire vertical space of my 1440p display.)
You will find that all of my links have been stitched together by Reddit. This is by design: I’ve been looking for ways to make the vertical tab bar a bit more manageable – since it now feels more like an outline than a wasteland of tabs overlying my browser – and came across some tricks to consider when testing the new user interface.
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Before I start, you should know that the default appearance of your sidebar doesn’t have to be permanent. Click on the little one “<" Arrow in the upper right corner of your tab bar to collapse the whole thing into a series of icons. Hover your mouse over it and your tabs will expand. I’ll admit, I don’t find this the most useful setup for productivity, but it at least makes my browser look super clean.
For the organizational hacks, I recommend entering Edge: // flags in the address bar of your browser and activate three different flags:
- # Edge tab groups: Allows users to organize tabs into visually distinct groups, such as: B. separating tabs that are assigned to different tasks.
- # edge-tab-groups-auto-create: Automatically creates groups for users when tab groups are enabled.
- # Edge tab group collapse: Allows you to collapse and expand a tab group when tab groups are enabled.
These do nothing for the tabs that are already open, but new tabs that you create from the same domain are placed in a convenient tab group that you can collapse and expand as you wish. While you’re still able to clutter your tab bar, at least you’ll be able to group them better if you group your tabs together.
Another approach you can take, either by replacing or in addition to the Groups feature, is to use a list to organize your list of open tabs. I like Organizer tabthat automatically sorts all of your tabs by url. The extension automatically sorts your tabs when you press a keyboard hotkey. However, I find it more useful to automatically sort tabs based on time intervals. Out of sight out of mind.
Finally, there are two other browser flags you can turn on for fun, not because they help you keep your tabs organized. pulling up Edge: // flags / again and switch on:
- # Tab hover cards: Allows a tab information popup to appear when you hover over a tab. This replaces tooltips for tabs.
- # tab-hover-card-images: Displays a preview image in tab hover cards when tab hover cards are activated.
Now if you hover your mouse over one of the tabs in your vertical bar, you’ll see a neat pop-up window that gives you the full title of the site and an image preview:
Even so, I’m still waiting for the biggest tweak of them all – a way to resize the vertical tab bar so I can see a bit more of a site’s name by default. This was possible when Microsoft tested the functionality in beta versions of Edge Chromium. Hopefully she’ll come back someday.
