8 Ways to Manage Tabs in Microsoft Edge Browser - WebNots (2023)

When browsing the web, you may need to open different websites or pages on the same website in multiple tabs. Working with these multiple tabs at once can be confusing, and it's easy to lose track of some tabs. Fortunately, the Microsoft Edge browser offers several tools to help you organize and manage multiple tabs more efficiently.

Related: How to manage tabs in Google Chrome browser?

Tab handling in Chromium-based Edge

The latest Chromium-based Edge browser on Windows 11 has a different set of options for managing tabs, such as tab grouping and vertical tabs. You can also use tabs to quickly create collections and add similar sites.

1. Open and close tabs

Microsoft Edge offers several basic ways to manage tabs, including adding a new tab, closing tabs, and navigating open tabs, among others.

• To add a new tab, you can click the plus sign "+" next to the last tab.

• To close a tab, simply click the "X" on the tab you want to close. Closing a single tab at a time can be tedious, so if you want to close a group of tabs at once, right-click on an appropriate tab and select the "Close tabs right" or "Close other tabs" option.
  • Close Tabs Right – Closes all open tabs to the right of the selected tab.
  • Close Other Tabs – Closes all tabs except the selected tab.

We will use the possibilities in thisright-click the context menuin most other sections of this article.

2. Rearrange tabs with drag and drop

You can drag and drop tabs in Edge to manage the following:

• Drag a tab left or right to rearrange the order. This is useful for rearranging tabs to your preferred position without closing and reopening them.
• You can also drag and drop the tab to open it in a new window.
• You can also drag and drop tabs from one open window to another to organize your tabs. Alternatively, you can use the "Move Tab To" option in the right-click menu to move the selected tab to another open window.

3. Duplication and restoration of guides

To reopen the current tab in a new tab, select "Duplicate Tab" from the right-click menu. This will duplicate the tab and open the same web page in another tab. Likewise you canreopen tabs closed by mistakeby selecting "Reopen closed tabs" from the right-click context menu. You can use this repeatedly to reopen all previously closed tabs, including groups of tabs. This option also works in Edge, even if you close and reopen the browser.

If you don't want anyone to find your previously opened pages, be sure to clear your Edge browsing history.

4. Turn off tabs

Some web pages automatically play annoying sounds when you open them in your browser. You may need to run to reduce the volume of your computer. Edge comes with a handy "Mute tab" feature to handle this situation like a pro. You'll see a speaker icon whenever a page plays audio, and you can simply click on it to mute the sound.

Alternatively, you can select "Mute tab" to stop the sound playing on the web page on the tab.

5. Attach/remove the studs to the edge

If you have a website you visit frequently, you can use the pinning feature in Edge to keep the website within easy reach.

• Open the tab you want to pin,Right clickand select "Pin Tab" from the context menu.
• Edge adds the pinned tabs before all other tabs and displays only the website icon without titles. Simply click on the icon to open the respective tabs.
• Edge will remember all your pinned tabs and open them when you close and restart the browser.
• The only option to remove pinned websites is to unpin them from the browser by right-clicking on the pinned tab and selecting the "Unpin Tab" option.

6. Handling tab groups in Edge

Let's say you have four tabs open in Edge - two search engines and two news pages. It makes sense to group these four tabs into two groups "Search" and "News" and organize the tabs. You can switch the group to open or hide web pages. You can also create additional tabs within any group to add relevant web pages.

• Select the "Add tab to new group" option from the right-click menu. If you already have a group, go to the "Add Tab to Group > New Group" option or select an existing group from the list.

• Enter a name for your group and choose a color for visible identification. Edge will display a thin line in this color at the top of tabs to indicate that the tab belongs to a group.

• You can add more tabs or remove any tab from the group. Click the tab in the tab group to show or hide all tabs in that group.

Related: Learn how to manage groups of tabs in Google Chrome?

7. Creating vertical guides in Edge

Instead of managing tabs in horizontal groups, Edge also lets you manage them in a vertical sidebar attached to the left side of the browser. Click the "Tab Actions Menu" icon that appears in the upper left corner of the browser, or select "Enable Vertical Guides" from the right-click menu. All your open tabs are moved to the sidebar and displayed in vertical orientation. If you have existing tab groups, they will also be moved in the vertical sidebar.

You have options to hide or expand the vertical panel and pin it to always show and disable vertical guides.

(Video) Windows 10 Tutorial Make a Web Note in Microsoft Edge Microsoft Training

8. Add tabs to collections and favorites

Working in multiple tabs requires a distraction-free mind and focus. When searching, there may be disruptions that you need to deal with immediately. For example, it may be necessary to see your child or answer a phone call. Since all groups of tabs will be deleted when you close Edge, the best option is to bookmark all open tabs so you can access them when needed. You can do this by selecting "Add all tabs to favorites" from the right-click menu. Create a folder and save your tabs for later access.

Likewise, you can add all open tabs to a new collection with a note to access them later.

Keyboard shortcuts for managing tabs in Edge

If you like using keyboard shortcuts, managing tabs in Edge is an interesting task. For example instead oflooking for the mouse cursor, you can simply use a keyboard shortcut to mute or unmute and unmute. Here is a list of keyboard shortcuts for managing Edge browser tabs.

Customize new tabs and start page in Edge

In addition to managing tabs, you can further customize what opens when you launch the Microsoft Edge browser or when you open a new browser tab.

• Click on the “Settings and more” icon with three dots that appears in the upper right corner and select “Settings” from the drop-down menu.
• Go to the "Start, home page and new tabs" section of the settings page. Here you can choose how you want to start the Edge browser. You can open a new tab page or open any previously closed sessions when you open Edge.
• If you want Edge to load more websites every time you open the browser, select the "Open these pages" radio button and click the "Add a new page" button. Enter the URLs of the page you want to open and add them.

• On the same settings page, scroll down and click the "Customize" button under the "New Tab Page" section. This will bring you to the front page of the new tab page where you can customize the items you want to see when you open a new tab. Learn more about howchange languageedisable quick links/news feed in edge new tab.

Settings removed from the old Edge browser

We loved two features in the old version of Edge that were later removed in the Chromium-based version. One is tab map view and the other is to save tabs to finally keep them aside.

Using the tab preview tool (removed in Chromium Edge)

Tab view was the handy feature in Edge that lets you view athumbnail viewof your open tabs.

• To view a single tab, hover over the tab to pop out a thumbnail of the tab.

• If you need to see all open tabs, click the down arrow next to the last tab. This will show previews of open tabs. You can click the thumbnail to open the tab in the main browser window.
• Click the arrow to hide the view.

The latest Chromium-based Edge will only show the short preview with the website name, URL and icon without the content. There are also no options to display the multi-tabbed view in the browser. However, you can use the "Alt + Tab" keys to view the contents of all open tabs in Edge.

Related: How to repair and reset the Edge browser?

Save tabs for later (removed in Chromium Edge)

If you're working on some of your open tabs, you can use Edge's "Leave Tab" feature to further organize your browser window. This tool allows you to save some of the guides and restore them later when you need them.

• Click a tab, then click the "Put Away" icon in the upper left corner of the browser.

• This will remove the tabs from the current tabs, making it easier to work with just a few tabs.
• Click the icon in the upper left corner of the window to see all reserved tabs.
• Click the "Restore Tabs" link in the sidebar menu to open the tabs in the main window.
• You can also share or bookmark saved guides. Click the 3 dots icon and select an option.
• To remove guides from the reserved list, click the "X" icon.

In Chromium-based Edge, you can add the page to "Collections" and refer to them later when you need to.

Resumé

The Microsoft Edge browser offers users a variety of tools and tab features that help them manage multiple tabs while browsing. These features let you pin tabs, create tab groups, and manage tabs in the vertical sidebar to avoid confusion when navigating between tabs. The above tools are very useful when you need to open multiple websites while maintaining an organized and clean browsing environment.