Until you’ve tried vertical tabs, you’ll have no idea how well they work to keep all your open tabs better organized and visible. With this feature, you can read the names of your tabs better, so you don’t get lost in a sea of tiny favicons. Some vertical tab features also integrate with Workspaces for better tab management.
While some select browsers (such as Arc Browser, Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, and Safari) come with built-in vertical tabs, the most widely used browser on the market, Chrome, does not. Fortunately, some extensions from the Chrome Web Store add this feature to the browser.
Also: You need a browser with vertical tabs: here’s why and 5 options to try
Not all of these extensions are created equal, though. Some are poorly designed or poorly executed. But within that pile of mediocre extensions are a few that add perfectly good vertical tabs to Chrome. In my opinion, the best of them all is tabVertikal. This extension includes all the features you need for better tab management, such as:
- Work spaces
- Tongue suspension (and automatic suspension)
- Native support for Chrome tab groups
- Automatic grouping of tabs based on custom rules
- Import/Export Tabs
- Custom window and tab titles
- Remove duplicates and sort tabs
- Dark mode
- Dozens of topics
- Fuzzy search
This extension is free and can be installed on Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers. Let me show you how to install and use tabVertikal.
How to add vertical tabs to the Chrome browser
What you will need: All you’ll need for this is an updated Chrome browser installed on the desktop of your choice.
On the resulting page, click Add to Chrome. When prompted, click “Add Extension” to complete the task.
Click Add to Chrome and you’re halfway there.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
To make it easier to work with this extension, click the puzzle piece icon in the Chrome toolbar and then click the tabVertikal pin icon. You should now see the tabVertikal icon to the left of the puzzle piece.
You don’t need to pin the extension, but it makes it easier to access.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Using tabVertikal
Before you dive into tabVertikal, you should know that there aren’t many configuration options. However, you can move the sidebar from the right to the left (which is my preference). To do so, paste the following URL into Chrome’s address bar:
chrome://settings/appearance#:~:text=side%20panel
On that page, click “Show on Left” in the side panel.
You can use tabVertikal on the left or right side.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
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Now when you click on tabVertikal, the sidebar will appear on the left side of the browser with all the currently open tabs. As you’ll notice, you can’t hide the top tab bar, so with this extension (as with all vertical tab extensions for Chrome) you’ll have both.
The tabVertikal extension also adds workspaces to Chrome. This feature alone is worth it. If you click on the Workspace dropdown, you can start creating new workspaces. Not sure what workspaces are? Think of them as categories to organize your tabs. For example, you could have workspaces for Productivity, Shopping, News, Entertainment, and Education (or whatever you need). Create those workspaces, and then start adding tabs to them. The only thing you can’t do (which the extension developer should consider adding) is move tabs from one workspace to another.
Creating custom group rules
Another useful feature is the ability to create custom rules for automatic tab grouping. Here’s how to create a rule.
Click the three-dot menu in the top right corner of the sidebar and click Add Group Rules.
On the resulting page, click Add Rule.
You will find all your rules here.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Also: Why I Always Have More Than One Browser Installed on My Computer (And You Should Too)
In the new pop-up window, give the rule a name. In the next field, you’ll need to add any text that may contain the title (such as technology either News). For the Domain option, I found that the only way to get Auto Grouping to work properly is to select Domain.
Next, give the tab group a title and color and click Create Rule. Now, whenever you open a tab that follows the rule you just created, it will be added to the group.
Make sure to fill out everything, otherwise the rule will not be effective.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to enable automatic tab grouping. To do this, click on the three-dot menu inside the sidebar and select Settings. On the tabVertikal Settings page, click the On/Off slider for Enable automatic tab grouping until it’s in the On position.
If you don’t enable automatic tab grouping, your rules will have no effect.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
The only caveat I would like to make is that tabVertikal’s auto-grouping feature isn’t perfect. Sometimes new tabs are added to a group that they don’t belong in, and to remove them from the group, you need to create a second group. There is no option to remove them from the group, so the grouping feature can be problematic. Personally, I don’t use the tab grouping feature and instead stick with Workspaces and the basic features, which makes this vertical tab extension pretty good.
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There are other vertical tab extensions for Chrome, such as Vertical tabs on the side panel, Pro Side Taband Vertical tabsIf tabVertikal isn’t your thing, one of these three should be what you’re looking for.