Holy cow, you guys… it’s a whole new world! My current shiny object is so completely amazing that I can barely process the fact that it a) exists and b) is free.
Confession: I am a hoarder of open browser tabs.
Credit: Agnieszka Boeske via Unsplash
It’s a long running disease, and I may or may not be personally responsible for the death of a couple of PCs because of it. Becoming a complete Mac fan girl has helped, but it’s still a problem.
In my defense, I’m not actually trying to work in more than two dozen (that’s a modest day) tabs at once, but sometimes I cruise through my inbox clicking links to review/read/post later, or I’ll research a topic by opening every relevant article I can find on the subject.
Shhh. This is supposed to be a judgment free zone.
Let’s not spend any more time on WHY I do this, because it’s a quirk I’ve had for years and it isn’t going anywhere. However, I recognize that it’s a massive drain on my MacBook’s memory and functionality… and yet I keep doing it.
I’ve been known to grab each link and drop into Evernote just do deal with the sheer number of open tabs while still saving them to continue my project later, which is ridiculous, ineffective and time consuming at best (and just plain idiotic in reality).
Enter OneTab.
I assumed this wondrous solution was created for my personal benefit… but apparently my people are out there and they also suffer from the tab affliction.
OneTab is an easy-to-install browser extension*, and dare I say (as a massive enthusiast of Chrome extensions) the BEST of them all. Add it for free, and moments later your open tabs are swept into – as you might guess – one tab. This miracle worker can save up to 95% memory, speeding up your operations and organizing everything into a pretty, organized little list.
Mind. Blown.
This alone is enough for you to stop reading and GO NOW to add OneTab to your browser!
But wait, there’s more! Here are a few other amazing features in OneTab:
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- Organizes tabs chronologically: get back to everything from today… or last Tuesday.
- Restore or delete all or manage tabs easily within the OneTab list.
- Share tabs as web page (!) – I do still use this feature to save tabs into Evernote, for example multiple blogs or articles on a topic for future reference.
- Import or export URLs
- Skip pinned tabs – i.e. the handful you really do want open all the time and not swept into OneTab.
- Grab some tabs – great for sweeping only certain sites (to the right or left, for example) into OneTab.
- Named tabs – create a group of frequently visited or related tabs – for example, pull up all sites with ease for a social media audit.
- Cool optional features – not that you – or I – ever have Gmail open in multiple tabs, but if one did, “silently reject duplicates.” would just quietly and non-judgmentally skip it.
Ok, get out there and enjoy this sanity saver! It’s pretty rare to find tools that are free, functional – and truly put out into the world for the betterment of all. OneTab is a breath of fresh air. Try it and let me know what you think!
Side note: the “Shiny Objects” series is about to go through a slight evolution. What do you think of these posts? Are they helpful for finding and exploring nifty new tools? I’d love your feedback!
*I recommend Chrome as your browser for this shiny object… and for a litany of other reasons. If you use Mozilla Firefox, I get it – definitely my backup browser with a lot of neat features, and OneTab works for Firefox. If you use Internet Explorer, it’s likely I’ve either chastised or shamed you already. Just stop.
