How to stop hoarding tabs without losing any
Eighty tabs open and scared to close them? A simple routine to close tabs today and still have every one when you need it.
· 5 min read
If your tab bar is a row of tiny icons you can no longer read, you are not alone. Most of us keep tabs open for the same reason: closing one feels like losing it. The fix isn’t more discipline. It’s a place to put tabs where you trust you’ll find them again.
Why we keep so many tabs open
Open tabs quietly do three jobs at once:
- A to-do list. “I need to answer this”, “I need to buy that”.
- A memory. The research for a trip or a project, exactly as you left it.
- A safety net. Bookmarks feel like a place things go to be forgotten, so the tab stays.
Every one of those jobs can be done somewhere else. Once each has a home, closing the tab stops feeling risky.
What it costs you
A full tab bar is slow to search with your eyes, so you open the same page twice. Each tab can hold on to memory, and the browser feels heavier as the day goes on. And the tabs you meant to come back to get buried under the ones you opened since. Hoarding tabs to avoid losing things ends up losing them anyway.
A routine that works
1. One window per piece of work
Keep the tabs for one project, trip or question in their own window. Use tab groups inside it if you like. A window is the unit you will save and reopen, so it should hold one thing.
2. Save the whole window, then close it
When you step away from that work, save every tab in the window at once and close it. Don’t pick through the tabs deciding which to keep; that decision is what kept them open in the first place. Save everything; sort later, if ever.
3. Name it for the work
“Lisbon trip planning” is easy to find next month. “Tuesday” is not. A good name is the difference between a saved session and a second junk drawer.
4. Keep the few that matter as bookmarks
Some tabs are reference pages you’ll use for years. Move those into a bookmark folder. The rest can stay in the saved session, or go when the work is done.
5. A weekly sweep, five minutes
Once a week, look at your saved sessions. Reopen what you’re working on, delete what’s finished. Most sessions you will never reopen, and that’s fine: saving them is what let you close the tabs.
What your browser can do on its own
- Bookmark all tabs (Ctrl Shift D, or ⌘ Shift D on a Mac) saves the window as a bookmark folder. It works, but every save adds a folder to your bookmarks, and tab groups are lost.
- Saved tab groups let you close a group and reopen it from the bookmarks bar. Good for a few groups; the bar fills up fast.
- Memory saving settings make idle tabs use less memory. That helps your computer, not your focus: the tabs are all still there.
Doing it with LinkVolv
LinkVolv was built for this routine. Open a new tab and go to Saved Tabs: the open-tabs panel lists every window you have open.
- Save Window saves every tab and leaves them open. Freeze saves them and closes the window. Both keep your tab groups, with their names and colors.
- A saved session reopens in one click, in a new window or the one you’re in. Reopening doesn’t delete it.
- Sessions sync to your account on every plan, so a window saved at work reopens at home.
- Forgot what you named it? Search finds tabs by what they were about, across sessions and bookmarks.
- Your bookmarks sit on the same new tab, so promoting a tab to a bookmark is a drag.
Already using another tab saver?
The free plan saves up to 100 tabs across your sessions, on top of 1,000 bookmarks. Step by step: How to save all tabs in Chrome.