Reclaim Your Tabs: How to Disable Annoying Chrome Tab Groups on Android

Tired of Chrome's tab groups in Android burying your open pages? You're not alone! Many users find the grouped tab feature clunky and frustrating, making it harder to quickly find the specific tab you need. Fortunately, there's a simple tweak to revert to the classic, ungrouped tab layout.

Tab Groups: A Love-Hate Relationship

Chrome's tab groups, launched a few versions ago, aimed to organize your browsing experience. Instead of individual tabs, new links opened in 'folders,' which, while intended to declutter, often made it cumbersome to locate specific pages. Some users found it counterintuitive and preferred the straightforward, ungrouped tab management of older Chrome versions.

The Good News: You Can Turn Them Off!

With Chrome version 91 and later, Google provides a way to disable tab groups and revert to the traditional tab layout. This involves adjusting a couple of experimental settings (flags) within Chrome. The best part? It's a quick and easy process.

Step-by-Step Guide to Ungrouping Your Tabs

Here’s a simple guide to disabling Chrome's tab groups on your Android device:

1. Access Chrome Flags: Open Chrome and type chrome://flags in the address bar.
2. Enable Single Surface V2 Finale: Search for chrome://flags/#enable-start-surface. Tap the dropdown menu and select "Enabled Single Surface V2 Finale."
3. Disable Tab Grid Layout Auto-Grouping: Search for chrome://flags/#enable-tab-grid-layout. From the dropdown, choose "Enabled Without auto group."
4. Restart Chrome: Close Chrome completely. Open the Android recent apps menu and swipe Chrome away to ensure it's fully closed.
5. Relaunch Chrome: Open Chrome again. Now all newly opened links should appear in individual, ungrouped tabs.

Enjoy Ungrouped Bliss: Benefits of Individual Tabs

• Improved Tab Visibility: Easily scan through all open tabs without navigating through groups.
• Faster Switching: Direct access to each tab for quicker switching between pages.
• Restored "Open in new tab" option: Long-pressing a link now correctly shows the option to open in a new tab.

Following these steps allows you to customize Chrome to better suit your browsing preferences. If you preferred the old way of managing tabs, this tweak will significantly improve your mobile browsing experience. Enjoy a cleaner, more efficient tab management system!