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If you are new to the Chrome-based way of living, you may have asked yourself what all the excitement about those tiny "pinned tabs" is about. We are here to make "pinning" a trusted tool in your digital toolbox.
To start: Pinning a tab requires right-clicking it, like on the image to the right. Repeat the action to unpin. If you are ready for more, we can get started!
Pinning is very easy. Imagine unpinning.
Pinned tabs are for giving you more space
Pinned tabs are for giving you more space
The first thing many people notice about pinned tabs is: It's very small. That is because pinned tabs only consist of its icon (favicon in nerd speak), without the title.
Removing the title can be a disadvantage when the page modifies the title, to grab your attention and distract you. Gmail displays Inbox (5), for example - avoiding this is reason enough to pin it!
Nerdy details
Nerdy details
Pinned tabs never resize. When you have too many, they scroll sideways, a sign that you should get help.
There are other ways tabs can get your attention, like changing the favicon. Gmail can do that too (via a setting), or Calendar changes its icon to the day of the month.
Pinned tabs are for organizing your tabs
Pinned tabs are for organizing your tabs
On good days, my browser looks like this. Just Drive and a social network - since changed to Google Chat.
The second thing people notice is that pins divide tabs into two groups - pinned tabs (1 in the screenshot) and unpinned tabs (2). Both can be reordered among themselves, but not mixed.
This makes pinned tabs feel "special" or "more important".
Note that you pin the tab, not the content. You can navigate to something else inside the pinned tab, it's not "locked" to a specific site. I try to keep pinned tabs the way they are (I don't navigate away from Gmail, for example).
Pinned tabs change Chrome's startup behaviour
Pinned tabs change Chrome's startup behaviour
Most importantly, pinned tabs can change the way Chrome starts. Chrome will always load your pinned tabs when it restarts, no matter what your startup configuration is.
Speaking about your startup configuration. When you visit Chrome's settings and click "On startup", you can probably choose what you want it to do. The options are self explanatory - but it's good to know that pinned tabs will always be restored for you.
Chrome is where most of our working lives plays out. It's important we keep our tools sharp and know how they work! Perhaps this was just what you needed to get going or to help a colleague struggling with keeping tabs open.
And if this was too easy for you, take a look at what else you can do with Chrome tabs and windows. Or at use cases for pinning for some great ideas on what to do with your new powers. Anyway, thank you for reading!
#chromePublished 2020-05-12 by Holger Matthies.Modified 2021-01-31 by Holger Matthies.Written listening to BT - Everything you're searching for is on the other side of fear
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