5 Best Chrome Extensions to Save Open Tabs
Google Chrome won’t disappoint if you accidentally close your browser or it freezes. Indeed, you can easily reopen the existing tabs of the previous session. But what if you want to save the currently open tabs? For example, when I was researching something, I came across a web page that would help me a lot as a regular reference until I finished working on my project. Now, bookmarking such a page doesn’t make sense because I don’t want to store it forever. In situations like these, Chrome tab saver extensions come in handy.
If you like to keep lots of tabs open for work, you’re going to love the Chrome Tab Saver Extensions. Extensions offer features such as saving an unlimited number of tabs in one click for later use, organizing tabs in folders, finding saved tabs, and much more.
We have selected the best Chrome extensions that allow you to temporarily save tabs. Let’s see them.
1. Better-OneTab
If you know the popular OneTab extension for storing your web pages, this is a similar extension on steroids. The extensions mentioned here can also be considered as the best alternatives to Better-OneTab.
Note: The Chrome online store lists it as best-onetab and after installation it appears as Better-OneTab. I hope you will not be disturbed as I did for a minute.
The Better-OneTab extension offers several ways to store and manage your tabs. You can store all active tabs, selected tabs, or the tabs to the right or left of the selected tab. To use the extension, right-click the extension icon in the extensions bar and select the appropriate option. You can even activate keyboard shortcuts.
On the tab list screen you will find an easy to use interface. You can drag tabs to rearrange them in different folders. Some other cool features include color coding and pin lists for better organization.
By default, the tab will be removed from the list when you click on it. However, you can change this in the extension settings if you want the web pages to remain until you manually delete them.
2. Toby for Chrome
Toby is another great expansion that I love. It organizes your saved tabs into collections, which are essentially folders. You can either save your entire session from the plugin icon, or open Toby to drag and drop open tabs in collections.
When it comes to reopening tabs, you can either open the entire collection or choose the tabs manually. If you no longer need specific tabs, delete them – remember that the extension only saves them temporarily. Other features include collection synchronization and dark mode.
Point: To create a new collection, click on the red icon at the bottom.
The only thing I don’t like about this extension is that it resumes my start page in Chrome. Now, that wouldn’t be a problem for the others, but I’m using another extension, the Start.me extension for that. I really wish we could use this extension without making it the default start page.
3. Tabzen
The next extension in the list is Tabzen. It is a simple tab manager that displays all open tabs when you activate it. You can save a single tab or all open tabs by clicking on the star icon.
Similar to other tab managers, this extension also allows you to organize your tabs in folders. The difference is that you can check the folders directly from the pop-up when you click on the extension. If you want to better organize your tabs, you must open the Tab Manager by clicking on the three-dot icon of this extension.
The tab manager supports drag and drop to allow you to organize tabs. You can import or export tabs and even sort them. When it comes to opening tabs, you can open them via the pop-up window or the tab manager.
The downside of this extension is that it does not offer additional customization features such as color coding, handling what happens when you click on the link, etc.
4. Session buddy
Sometimes, instead of saving the selected tabs, we want to save the entire session. It is useful when you have opened several tabs related to the same subject. For example, if you were looking for a topic you need later, just record the entire session. Later, when you need it, you can reopen the tabs for that session using Session Buddy.
You can either open an individual tab from within the session, or open all tabs. When the session is finished, delete it by right-clicking on the session name and choose Delete. By default, the extension allows you to record only 3 sessions but you can customize the behavior in the session settings. If you want to try a similar extension that saves all open tabs, check Cluster -Window & Tab Manager.
5. Tabbie
If you’re looking for a simple extension to save your tabs in Chrome for later use, you may like Tabbie. It offers three ways to store tabs: save all tabs without closing them, save and close all tabs, and save only the selected tabs.
In the last option, you must first select the tabs in Chrome. To select tabs, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) and click the tabs you want to select with your mouse. Once selected, launch the extension and check the box next to Save only the selected tabs. The selected tabs will be saved in the group.
All tab groups will be available on the same screen. Click on it to see the pages inside or click on Open to launch all the pages.
Bonus tip: use Chrome’s built-in method to save tabs
If you don’t want to install any extensions, you can use Chrome’s built-in help to bookmark all existing open tabs. When you use the function, a new folder is created in which all your open tabs are bookmarked. Later, when you need it, you need to access the bookmarks folder and open all pages using the native option.
Let’s check the steps in detail.
Step 1: In Chrome, right-click an empty space next to the add (+) icon in the title bar. Select Mark All Tabs from the menu. You can even use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + D to bookmark all web pages in Windows. For Mac users, the shortcut is Cmd + Shift + D.
2nd step: A window will open. Select the location where you want to create a new folder. Give it an appropriate name such as “Browser session for Chrome extensions” and save it using the Save option.
Point: You must create a separate folder where you can save your sessions in subfolders.
Step 3: Now whenever you want to open these web pages, click on the three dots icon in the upper right corner of Chrome and select Favorites.
Step 4: Navigate to the folder you created to save the web pages. Right click on it and choose the desired way to open it. You can open in the same window, a new window or in incognito mode.
Step 5: Delete the bookmarks folder when you’re done using the tabs it contains.
Say no to bookmarks
Saving tabs without bookmarking them has many advantages. First, your bookmarks are not cluttered with temporary data. Second, these extensions prevent you from hoarding tabs, which helps free up memory on your computer.
Then:
Do you like to organize things? Check out these top 21 Google Chrome Tab tips to use productively from the following link.
Last updated on May 5, 2020
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