Managing tabs is a never-ending battle. As Internet users, we always seem to have tons of tabs hanging around on our devices. Most of the time, we forget to close these tabs even though we never need to go back to them, and Google seems to offer Chrome users a great solution to this problem.

The new tab management feature is called Android Tab Declutter. According to some code discovered by 9To5Google, this new feature is tentatively scheduled to come to Android with Chrome 125, but that date may or may not change. If it does happen, that version will be the one to be used. If it does happen, that version will launch in May. Like most new features in Chrome, this will likely be hidden behind Flag.

A quick look at the code that shows how this will work:

Unfortunately, there are many unanswered questions about the new Android Tab Declutter feature. We know that this feature allows the browser to automatically archive or delete inactive tabs. We don't know if we can choose to archive or delete tabs, or if it is one or the other and we can't choose. However, we can guess from the code. It appears that tabs that are no longer active are first archived, and then the new feature option allows you to choose whether to restore or delete them.

Whether you are worried about memory consumption on your phone or just want to keep your tabs organized, this feature could be quite valuable. We hope that Google will eventually bring this feature to iOS, but for now, this is a nice update for Android users that will greatly reduce the hassle of managing tabs.

The usefulness of the Android Tab Declutter depends on how Google implements it. If it is done incorrectly, tabs you want to keep open could always be archived. If the timing is done right and this feature is intelligent, it could be a game changer when dealing with large numbers of tabs on Android.

Thankfully, Android Tab Declutter should be able to be turned on and off, so if it becomes annoying and you start closing tabs faster than you want, you can simply get rid of it.