I just saw a coworker with something like 30 tabs open in Chrome. I also know someone who regularly hits the 500-tab limit on their phone, though I suspect that’s more about being messy than anything else.
When I’m researching something, I might have 10-50 tabs open for a while, but once I’m done, I close them all. If I need them again, browser history is there.
Why do people keep so many tabs open? Is there a workflow or habit I’m missing? Do they just never clean up, or is there a real benefit to tab hoarding? I’m genuinely curious. Why do people do that?
It’s a to do list
I feel like actual to-do list and actual read-it-later thing would be better for those. Or just bookmarks
Firefox has that pocket thing. Could be worth a try.
RIP Pocket. I did use it for a time before it was killed, but I had moved to self-hosted solution (readeck) prior to it being killed.
Keeping them open keeps them more visible than if you only rely on bookmarks or browser history. Personally I use a browser extension for vertical tabs (Tree Style Tab) that allows you to make subgroups, which does a great job organizing the tabs - I could replicate something similar with bookmarks, but that would be additional work.
I also use an extension that automaticaly unloads tabs after a while (you can toggle it off on a per-tab basis, of course), which helps a lot with keeping down resource use.
When I asked someone about it, they basically used them like bookmarks.
More like a “level 1 bookmarks”.
My wife calls them her emotional support tabs.
ADHD. Lack of education with computers growing up are the one I commonly see. Basically America society failing them.
Because the whole world is America, right?
Do none of these people know about the bookmarks bar? And that you can literally put folders on it if you want?
What do you mean they’re not visible, of course they are
I guess these people just can’t be bothered to organize stuff. I find a bit puzzling that they prefer to live with chaos like that. I would feel very anxious and frustrated if I had to deal with a hundred tabs in a single window all the time.
Shockingly, some people function differently to you.
Maybe they have a superpower for staying calm even though everything around them is a total mess. I know I don’t have that power.
The point is that it may look like a mess to you but that doesn’t mean it is objectively a mess. Hundreds of open tabs can still have logic and organisation even if that is not obvious to you.
