Do you have different tasks that need different sets of web pages to be opened regularly?
An example might be that you buy items of a particular type online from the same few sources – eg John Lewis, Amazon, Argos, Currys. Quite separately from these websites, you may have other tasks that require a completely different set of websites to be open – eg, you might start the day by checking the weather, local news, and local traffic reports.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could open and close these sets of websites with single commands? You can, and it’s easy.
- Start by opening all the websites (in different tabs) that you want to put together as a single group
- Close any open web pages that you don’t want to be in the group
- Click on the three dots at the top right of the Chrome window
- Click on “Bookmarks”
- Click on “Bookmark all tabs”
- Give the new folder a name
- Click on a folder (if any) within which this group of tabs will be saved
- Click on “Save”
To open all of the web pages in a group at once:
- Click on the three dots at the top right of the screen
- Click on “Bookmarks”
- Find the folder containing the saved tabs
- Right-click on the folder
- Click on “Open all (x)”, where “x” is the number of pages in the saved group
In Chrome, you can’t close ALL tabs at once, but you can close the current tab, all tabs except the current tab, or all tabs to the right of the current tab. Just right-click on the name of a tab and choose the option you need from the bottom of the context menu that has just opened.
Alternatively, there is an extension from the Chrome Web Store called “Close All Tabs” that places a white cross in a red circle to the right of the address bar. Click on this to close all tabs before opening a different group.
By the way, you can change Chrome’s behaviour so that it opens with either a predefined set of tabs or the tabs that were open at the time the browser was last closed. To define your choice:
- Click on the three dots (top right)
- Click on “Settings”
- Scroll down until you find the settings headed “On start-up”
- Make your choice, entering the addresses of the websites if applicable
The Bookmarks Bar
The “Bookmarks bar” is a very useful place to put your most often-used bookmarks. If you can’t see the bookmarks bar (which will be directly below the address bar when it is visible):
- Click on the three dots (top right)
- Click on “Bookmarks”
- Click on “Show bookmarks bar”
Note that you can place folders of bookmarks (such as the folders we created above) on the bookmarks bar as well as individual bookmarks. You can then open all items in a folder by right-clicking as explained above.
It’s also worth noting that if you right-click on any item on the bookmarks bar and then left-click on “edit”, you can shorten the name of the item so as to get more items visible on the bookmarks bar. You can even remove the name of an item altogether so that it is only identified by its icon. I have done this in the illustration, with my “DL” icon representing a shortcut to my own website.
If you have placed more items on the bookmarks bar than there is room for, there will be two chevrons directly beneath the three dots (top right of window). Clicking on the chevrons will reveal the items that don’t fit on the bar.
(Last updated 09/07/2021)