Tabs are one of the best features of web browsers. Without a doubt, today it would be impossible to open web pages in separate windows, as it was years ago. Any browser that comes to mind will have a tab bar, at the top, that will allow us to open and visit all the websites that we want at the same time. However, although the concept of tabs is fine, the truth is that it can be improved. And unfortunately, developers have long stopped innovating in this regard.
For some time, there are some ideas that are gradually being introduced within the concept of browser tabs . For example, functions are being implemented to create tab groups, and even containers, as is the case with Firefox.
However, there is a feature that, despite the fact that many users ask for it, companies do not finish implementing them in browsers: vertical tabs.
What are the advantages of vertical tabs in a browser
The concept of tabs is the same horizontally, as all browsers have, as vertically. However, aesthetically it is much more comfortable to have them vertically, on one side of the monitor, than horizontally.
Today’s monitors have rectangular proportions, generally 16: 9 on wide, or 21: 9 on ultra-wide. This means that we have more space horizontally than vertically. The tab bar takes up significant space at the top of the screen, as does the launch bar at the bottom, for example. By having more space on the X axis than on the Y axis, you could make better use of this space by placing the tabs vertically on one of the sides.
Also, having them vertically, you could see the name of the tabs much better by having more space. And with a simple scroll, the problem of very small tabs would be solved when we have a large number of them open at the same time.
Best extensions to put Chrome tabs vertically
Except for the new Edge, no browser has default functions for vertically placing tabs. However, thanks to independent developers, it is possible to do it thanks to extensions like the ones we are going to see below.
VerticalTabs
This is one of the extensions that accumulates the most downloads to change the way we see Chrome tabs. This extension will show an icon to the right of the address bar that, when pressed, will show us a list with all the tabs we have open in the browser.
We can see a number with all the tabs we have open, use filters to search for the ones we want to find quickly, sort them, anchor them and control them with the keyboard. One of the easiest and fastest ways to have vertical tabs in Chrome .
Vertical Tabs
This extension is one of the simplest and most complete that we can find to place the tabs of our browser vertically. This extension allows us to add a new column to the right or left of the browser where all the tabs that we have open in the browser will appear.
This bar has light and dark mode, a design of tabs very similar to the original of Chrome and allows you to easily manage the open tabs by closing the ones that we do not need, silencing those that have sound and even ordering them by dragging them to the order that we want.
Tab Manager
A much more tidy and minimalist way to have all the browser tabs in one place. This extension adds an icon to the right of the address bar that, when you click on it, shows us a drop-down panel with all the ones we have open.
This extension allows drag and drop to sort the tabs, group them, fix them and even highlights the duplicate tabs to close them and save memory.
OneTab
The main purpose of this extension is to help us save resources and memory. For this, this extension takes all the tabs that we have open in the browser and puts them, as a list, within a new unique tab.
From here we can easily see a vertical list with all the tabs we had open in the browser, manage them and reopen the ones we want to visit, either one by one or all of them again.
Vertical Tabs & Bookmarks
This extension allows us to vertically group all the tabs that we have open in the browser. Clicking on the button of the extension opens a drop-down panel from which we can see all the open tabs. In addition, from this same section we will be able to access the bookmarks and the history of the browser in a very ordered and organized list.
Tab Stacks
This extension also allows us to vertically see all the tabs that we have open in the browser as a vertical list. Its main strong point is that developers have programmed it with usability and productivity in mind. Therefore, we can control it almost completely using keyboard shortcuts to open the list, move to the tab we want and open it.
In addition, another of its strengths is the search engine. We can type in the search bar to instantly show all the tabs that match what we are typing.