This is how desktop Chrome's new feature lets you declutter Tab bar

Google Chrome now offers a solution for the Cluttered tab interface by allowing you to ‘declutter’ and fix the Tab bar when so many tabs are open. We’ve been able to get the “TabStripdeclutter” feature working in Canary.

If you’re a Chrome user struggling with an overwhelming number of tabs and can’t decide which ones to close, Google is testing a new feature for this. It seems they are using the same code as they did for the TabDeclutter feature for Chrome on Android.

We first noticed this last month when we saw a new commit message about ‘[TabstripDeclutter] Add feature flag.’ Today, we managed to make the feature work.

Here is how Chrome’s TabstripDeclutter feature works:

Chrome treats tabs that have been open for more than 7 days as inactive and allows you to close them through a prompt in the Tab Search menu. You can review and use the “Close tabs” option to remove them and enjoy using Chrome with fewer tabs that consume fewer resources when unused tabs are excluded.

This requires the Tab Organizer feature we reported sometime back to be available and enabled.

Here is how to declutter the Tab bar in Chrome:

1. Launch Chrome.
2. Click the Tab Search icon.
3. Select “Organize Tabs.”
4. In addition to Group Tab suggestions, you’ll notice the “Close unused tabs” option. You can review and decide which tabs to close. You can click the “Close tabs” button to close all or selectively close certain tabs.

Like Android, Google may allow users to choose the inactivity period, i.e., close tabs after 14, 30, or 60 days instead of 7 days, so that they are in control and don’t lose tabs that contain valuable work.

Besides the Chrome Tab bar declutter feature, Google Chrome is getting design changes for Native PDF Viewer and Task Manager. Chrome is adding toast notifications to the reading list and to prompt users to save bookmarks to Google Account.