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?

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    Those long projects are a proper use case I don’t really have much experience with. I would probably just end up bookmarking them and opening the sites when I need them.

    However, tracking progress is a whole different thing. That’s a very valid use case IMO. Bokmarks just weren’t built for that sort of thing, whereas an open tab works perfectly. Actually, some other people have also pointed out that an open tab will store the place where you were. For example, if it’s a long article, it knows exactly how far you’ve scrolled and it will allow you to easily pick up where you left off last time. That is something I rarely do, but now I can definitely see the value in keeping those tabs open.

    Keeping the interest active is also a pretty good point. If the tab is open, it will remind you of its existence. If you bookmark a site, it will be very easy to forget it ever existed. You would have to actively seek it out to be reminded of it. As some other people have already said: bookmarks is the place where tabs go to die.