If you’re a Chrome user, you may have noticed that the order of tabs in the browser can be a little different than what you’re used to. This is because Google has decided to order tabs based on their importance to the user. If you want to change how Chrome orders tabs, there are a few steps you need to take:

  1. Open Chrome and click on the three lines in the top left corner of your screen. This will open a menu with three options: “Settings”, “Developer Tools”, and “Chrome”. From here, select “Developer Tools”.
  2. In Developer Tools, click on the tab called “Tabbed browsing”. This will show all of your tabs in an ordered list. You can drag and drop any tab into this list, or use the arrow keys to move them around.
  3. If you want to change how Chrome orders tabs, then you need to make some changes to one of these lists. To do this, select one of the tabs in the Tabbed browsing list and click on its name in the top right corner of Developer Tools. Then, select “Options”. In Options, there are two options: “Layout” and “Appearance”. The Layout option will control how all of your tabs are arranged in your browser; it can be either a grid or List view. The Appearance option will control how each tab looks; it can be either a dark color or light color. If you want to make changes to both these options, then select both options and click on OK when prompted for a confirmation message.

Before

Most people usually have a favorite set of webpages that they open when they start their day, but different preferences in how they like for new tabs opened from the original(s) to behave.

The default behavior in Chrome is for new tabs to open “relative” to the original and therefore be “grouped together” as shown here with these two How-To Geek webpages. But not all people care for that and prefer for new tabs to be opened at the far right end of the “Tab Bar”.

After

Once again here is our set of “starter webpages” with the same link being opened in a new tab. This time that new tab is all the way at the end of the “Tab Bar” waiting to be viewed after the “starter webpages” have been sorted through.

Closing “starter webpages” will produce a very satisfying behavior…

A perfect precession of tabs in a “left to right” order. Once you have finished with your “starter webpages” you can enjoy viewing all of those new tabs in just the order that you opened them.

Conclusion

This extension should be a perfect fit for you if you are someone who prefers sorting through your “starter webpages” first then viewing newly opened tabs in successive “left to right” order.

Links

Download the Modified Tab Ordering extension (Google Chrome Extensions)