How to pin tabs in Google Chrome

How to pin tabs in Google Chrome.

When you’re working with a lot of open browser tabs, switching between them can be painful. The “Pin Tab” feature helps solve this problem. This is a longstanding feature of many popular web browsers – Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, etc.

Pinning tabs helps you find important web pages in your browser. Pinned tabs take up less space than normal tabs, and they also persist across browser restarts (assuming they’re in the last closed browser window). This guide explains how to pin a tab in Google Chrome. You’ll also learn all about setting up and using Chrome’s “Pin Tab” feature.

Pin and Unpin Tab Using Mouse or Trackpad

Open Chrome, right click on the tab and select Pin.

Alternatively, right-click the tab and press P on your keyboard. Chrome will highlight the Pin option in the menu. Press Enter/Return to pin the tab.

Chrome will move the tab to the “Docking Area” in the tab bar. Pinned tabs hide the page title and only show the website icon in the thumbnail. Also, pinned tabs are smaller (square) than non-pinned tabs with page titles.

To unpin a tab, right-click it in the docking area and select Unpin.

(Re)Organize Pinned Tabs

Google Chrome arranges tabs from left to right in the order you pinned them. The first pinned tab stays pinned to the left edge of the tab bar, and subsequent pinned tabs stay on the right.

You can always reorder pinned tabs in the docking area. Google Chrome does not support moving or placing pinned tabs outside of the docking area.

To move a pinned tab, click on the tab and drag it to the desired location in the docking area.

Pinning vs. Grouping Tabs: What’s Different

Google allows you to group tabs in the Chrome browser. Tab grouping tidies up the tab bar and makes it easier to find tabs. You can create any groups that will help you stay more organized. For example, you can create a tab group for project research and another for “entertainment” apps like Netflix or Hulu. You can also create different tab groups for tabs with different priorities (for example, what you need to take care of immediately and what can wait).

Unlike pinned tabs, Chrome doesn’t move grouped tabs to the left side of the tab bar. Instead, the browser stores and highlights the tab in a new section in the tab bar. You can also give grouped tabs a name or title.

Here’s how you can organize tabs into groups in Google Chrome.

Press and hold the Control or Command key (on Mac computers) and select the tabs you want to group. Chrome should highlight all selected tabs.Right-click on any of the selected tabs and select “Add tabs to new group”.

Give the group a name and choose your preferred color code or theme for the group. Press Enter or Return to continue.

You should now see a tab group in the Chrome tab bar. Select a grouped tab to expand and view the tabs in the group. Select the group again to collapse it.

To remove a tab from a group, expand the group, right-click the tab, and select Remove from Group.

Dragging a tab outside of a group is another quick way to remove a tab from a group. You can also add a tab to an existing group by dragging it into the group.

To split a group into separate tabs, right-click the group title/name and select Ungroup.

The Close Group option deletes the group and closes all member tabs. Right-click the group header and select “Close Group” to split the group and close tabs within the group.

You cannot pin a tab group. However, Chrome allows you to pin individual tabs to a group. When you pin a tab in a group, Chrome moves the tab from the group to the pin area.

Pin Tab Using Keyboard Shortcut

Google Chrome does not have a built-in keyboard shortcut for pinning and unpinning tabs. However, you can manually create a keyboard shortcut using a third-party Chrome extension.

Visit the Keyboard Shortcuts (custom keyboard shortcuts) page in the Chrome Web Store and select Add to Chrome.

Select Add extension.

Proceed to the next step when Chrome successfully installs the extension.

Type or paste chrome://extensions into the address bar and press Enter (on a Windows PC) or Return (on a Mac).Select the hamburger menu icon in the top left corner of the Extensions page.< /li>< /ol>

Select keyboard shortcuts.

Scroll to the “Keyboard Shortcuts (Custom Keyboard Shortcuts)” section. Then select the pencil icon next to the dialog box in the Dock/Unpin tab bar.

Press the keyboard shortcut you want to assign to pin and unpin tabs. For example, Ctrl + P or Shift + P. In this tutorial, we will register Control + P as a keyboard shortcut to pin and unpin Chrome tabs on our macOS laptop. Finally, set the following dropdown menu option in Chrome.

You should now be able to use the new keyboard shortcut to pin and unpin tabs in Chrome. And the last thing you need to do is configure the Shortkeys extension to work in incognito mode.

Chrome disables third-party extensions in incognito mode, so the shortcut won’t work when you open an incognito window. To pin browser tabs using keyboard shortcuts, enable the incognito extension.

Type or paste chrome://extensions into the address bar and press Enter or Return on your keyboard.Search for “Keyboard Shortcuts (Custom Keyboard Shortcuts)” and click the “Details” button.

Turn on Allow in incognito mode.

Your custom keyboard shortcut will now pin and unpin tabs in normal and incognito mode.

Open Chrome With Pinned Tab

Google Chrome permanently fixes pinned tabs in the tab bar. If you don’t unpin or close pinned tabs, they will remain in the “Pinned Area” even when you close (and reopen) your browser. Grouped tabs and other regular tabs are closed.

However, please note that you can lose pinned tabs in Chrome if you don’t close the browser properly. If you keep multiple browser windows open, always close the window with the pinned tabs last.

If you’re using a Mac computer, keep Chrome open by clicking the red icon in the top left corner of the browser window. Instead, right-click Chrome in the Dock and choose Exit. Alternatively, press and hold Command + Q for about 3 seconds until the browser closes.

When you open Google Chrome again, it immediately opens the browser with pinned tabs.

Pin the Important Tabs

If you are unable to pin tabs, make sure you have the latest version of Google Chrome installed on your device.

Type or paste chrome://settings/help into the address bar and press Enter/Return. Please wait while Chrome downloads the latest version of the browser.

You may need to close and reopen Chrome to install the update. For more information, see our guide to updating Chrome.