To save tabs for later in Chrome, first decide whether you need one page or the whole set. A single article belongs in a reading list or a bookmark. A cluster of pages about one piece of work needs a name. Saving everything together without a name only moves the clutter to another screen.
The Tab Bookshelf in Backs keeps saved pages as books on named shelves on your new tab. Its source offers a choice of tabs or tab groups from a browser window. The capture screen has two actions: Save keeps the selected tabs open, while Stash saves them and closes them. Backs requests tab access when you first choose pages, because it needs to read the open tabs you select.
Give a set of tabs one job
Name a book for what you will do next, such as “Compare train routes” or “Finish the garden plan”. That is easier to recognise next week than “Friday tabs”. Keep several links in the same book when they answer one question. If the question changes, make another book. A shelf can then group books for a wider theme, such as Home, Work or Reading.
Before saving a full window, glance through it. A payment page, a temporary sign-in screen and a search result you have already used do not need to follow you. Select the pages you would deliberately reopen. This small edit makes the saved set more useful than a snapshot of every tab that happened to be open.
Decide whether to close the originals
Choose Save when you want a copy for later and need the current tabs to stay open now. Choose Stash when you are finished with the session and want the browser window cleared. Both choices create saved pages in the Bookshelf. They are different from removing a page from a saved book, which changes the saved set.
The Bookshelf lets you open a page, a book or a shelf. It also offers a choice of opening in the current window or a new one. Start with one book rather than a whole shelf when you return to a task; that keeps yesterday’s unrelated research from coming along. If a book contains a Chrome group, the opening options can preserve grouping.
Review what you kept
Saving pages is useful only if you can find them. Use a short, specific name and look through the shelf every so often. Open or delete books that no longer represent live work. The Bookshelf has a search field for books and pages, so the page title and the name you choose both help retrieval.
A saved web address is a pointer to a page, not a copy of the page itself. Sites can move, require a login or change their content. If a passage matters, keep your own note beside the project rather than assuming a saved tab is an archive. Backs stores the saved set with the extension; uninstalling it removes locally held extension data unless you have made your own backup.
Questions about saving tabs
- Does Stash close my selected tabs?
- Yes. In Backs, Stash saves the selected tabs as pages in a book and closes those tabs. Save leaves them open.
- Can I save only some tabs?
- Yes. The capture view lets you select tabs, or choose by tab group, before making a book.
- Can I open everything later?
- A book has an Open all action. The shelf view can open all saved pages on that shelf.
Photo: Syd Sujuaan / Unsplash