What Is a Vertical Tab & How to Manage It?

According to Opensource, 45% of people have more than 20 tabs open at a given time. If you've ever stared at the numerous open tabs on your computer and felt overwhelmed, know that you're not alone. You could be a marketing professional, researcher, content creator, or belong to any other field that requires extensive research, tab hoarding is often a problem.

You might feel like you need to access all the available information at once, but there's a limit to how much you can grasp at a time. By opening tab after tab and cluttering your browser, you could lose focus from the primary task at hand, feel stressed looking at the sea of information, and eventually become less productive.

But let's be real—if you want to dig deep into a subject, you have to access multiple sources, so avoiding opening multiple tabs may not be feasible. What if we told you there's a way you can hoard tabs without compromising on productivity? The key is to stay organized by switching to Chrome vertical tabs, instead of the traditional horizontal tabs.

Vertical tabs are a style of user interface design where the tabs are arranged vertically on the side of the window, rather than horizontally at the top.

Add an image of the Vertical tab with CurateIt!

Here are some benefits of Chrome vertical tabs:

Vertical tabs make optimum use of the horizontal space available on the screen. You could be working on a compact laptop or a widescreen monitor, vertical tabs allow you to see longer tab titles without truncation.

When you're in a hurry and want to quickly scan all the open tabs to find a particular one, vertical tabs allow you to scan the tabs quickly. You can identify the tab you're looking for at a glance, as the titles are clearly readable.

When you're working on research-intensive tasks, you'll inevitably open multiple tabs on your browser. With Google Chrome vertical tabs, you can get a better overview of the open tabs and scroll through them with ease, even if the number of open tabs is outrageously high.

Add a testimonial - “Being a marketer means opening and closing hundreds of tabs daily, slowing my system down to a crawl. I was afraid to give it a break, fearing I'd lose important links and inspirations. With CurateIt I can now have my tabs neatly organized, and saved in custom folders for easy access. My laptop now gets a good night's sleep and wakes up ready for action the next day - Todd W, Freelance Growth Marketer.”

Vertical tabs are great if you often have to juggle between different tasks. As you get seamless visibility of the open tabs, it's easy for you to switch between tasks without losing context.

Staying organized keeps you more focused at your job, and helps you stay productive. Vertical tabs work like your virtual notebook, where you can neatly arrange the open tabs and work more efficiently.

If you're accustomed to using horizontal tabs, you might be reluctant at first to make a switch to Chrome vertical tabs. To help you make an informed decision, let's have a look at this side-by-side comparison of vertical tabs vs horizontal tabs. We’re going to consider five key points for comparison—space utilization, scannability, efficiency, navigation, and user adaptation.

Vertical tabs utilize the vertical space to fit in longer tab titles. It's a suitable option for those who rely heavily on internet-based research and work on widescreen monitors. Horizontal tabs, on the other hand, make the best use of horizontal space but come with limited space to display tab titles when multiple tabs are open.

With vertical tabs, it's easy to read long tab titles and quickly scan all the open tabs to identify a particular one. On the contrary, horizontal tabs shorten tab titles, making it difficult to scan through them. You have to hover over the tabs to check their full titles, which is both inconvenient and time-consuming.

Vertical tabs allow vertical scrolling, making it seamless to handle a large number of tabs without feeling overwhelmed. When you have to consult loads of resources, vertical tabs are more efficient. With horizontal tabs, the limited horizontal space makes the tabs narrower, reduces visibility, and also lowers your efficiency.

Vertical tabs can have a slight learning curve if you are just getting started, more so when you are accustomed to working with traditional tabs. But once you’re familiar with vertical tabs, they will make browsing and researching more convenient in the long run. Horizontal tabs, on the other hand, are mostly the default setting for users, so there is hardly any learning curve.

When you have many tabs open on your browser and want to switch from one task to another, Google Chrome vertical tabs offer seamless navigation. But with horizontal tabs, you'll have to scroll left and right incessantly to locate the right tab, which can potentially disrupt your flow of work.

The ultimate decision of using vertical tabs or horizontal tabs boils down to your individual preference, type of work, and specific requirements. But if you have a habit of hoarding tabs and you’d like to be more organized and save time, vertical tabs would be a practical choice.

When your computer is working overtime to accommodate the endless number of open tabs and you start losing track, CurateIt comes to your rescue. Follow the steps below:

Not just that—if you aspire to be the Marie Kondo of tab organization, CurateIt tabs manager allows you to save tabs into collections for easy access, search and move across tabs, and also facilitates hassle-free syncing across browsers, profiles, and devices, making your day-to-day operations a lot simpler and streamlined.

How else can CurateIT boost your productivity tenfold and enhance your workflow management?

Yes, you can enable vertical tabs in Chrome by using extensions or experimental features provided by Chrome. Some extensions allow you to switch to a vertical tab layout for better space utilization.

The vertical tab function organizes and displays open tabs vertically along the browser window's edge, offering a different layout for improved visibility and navigation.

To open vertical tabs, you can either use a browser extension that supports this feature or enable experimental features within your browser settings, allowing you to switch to a vertical tab layout.