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?

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[–] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

People with ADHD (I speak from experience) have shitty working memory, poor organisational skills, are easily distracted, and a tendancy to procrasate.

Therefore you start researching something for work/uni (4tabs) I'll come back to that after a little YouTube break (+3tabs) I'll watch those videos later I need to get back to work (+4 tabs that are duplicates of the first 4). Time for home, when do I need to catch the bus (+1) and the first 12 tabs will just stay open till the next day because you know you won't remember what you were doing.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Firefox's "search in tabs" is an invaluable feature to reduce duplication.

    Prefix with '%' in the search bar

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Oh, so that’s how the numbers go up. Keep on doing that for a week or two, and having only 100 tabs open is an achievement.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I was thinking the 30 from your original post is rookie numbers.

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