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?

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
    41·
    2 hours ago

    I don’t really see anyone admitting the truth: digital hoarding. At a certain number of tabs it becomes nearly impossible to find anything so it’s hard for me to believe people really find the practice as useful as they claim. I probably have 50 tabs open but I use a tab group extension that keeps most hidden (and Firefox doesn’t load the content in inactive tabs after you restart it). Most are essentially bookmarks but I’d be lying if I said even 20% of them end up being useful to keep open.

    • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Ok, so is it just the feeling of keeping something that might be useful? Isn’t that what hoarding really is? I guess it’s better to hoard tabs than photos, let alone physical papers.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 hour ago

        Yes and yes, to a degree. I think most people are hoarders on some small scale but at a certain point it’s harmful. But yeah digital hoarding is probably the least harmful type.

      • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        2·
        2 hours ago

        Yup, that’s also the reason I have them a lot.

        Other times it’s just me being too lazy to close them, cause I feel lost in all the tabs and don’t know anymore which to close. There should be a toggleable option to default close tabs when they’ve not been opened for 30 days or more. Perhaps with a question “this tab is about to be closed, do you want it closed or bookmarked?”

        • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          Just tried a cool extension called OneTab. It condenses all of your tabs into a neat list of links. That way, each site doesn’t take any more RAM than line of text. The tab is technically closed, but you can easily access it from the OneTab menu. Looks and feels more like a vertical tab bar really. Might want to try it out. That way, you never have to let go any tabs ever again.