Chrome Tab Groups: Create, Rename and Colour Them

## Why it matters

When you have dozens of tabs spread across your bar, finding the ones you need takes a scan. Groups let you cluster related pages under a single coloured, named pill. Instead of hunting for your email in the chaos, you see a blue "Communications" pill. Click it to expand the group, click it again to collapse. It is a visual shortcut to what you are actually working on.

Unlike bookmarks or reading lists, groups are live. Your actual tabs sit inside them. Switch between groups as your focus shifts through your day: "News research" when you are gathering sources, "Email and chat" when you are catching up with messages, "Code" when you jump into development. The tabs move with you because they are the same tabs you have open now.

## How it works

A Chrome tab group is managed by two APIs working together. chrome.tabs.group() adds tabs to a group by ID. chrome.tabs.ungroup() removes tabs from a group. The group itself, its title, colour, and whether it is collapsed, are all controlled with chrome.tabGroups.update().

When you create a group, Chrome assigns it a numeric ID. The group lives as long as at least one tab belongs to it. The moment the last tab leaves the group (either by ungrouping or by closing), the group dissolves. If you close all the tabs in a group at once, the group goes too.

Collapsing a group folds the tabs behind the pill so you see just the name and colour. The tabs are still open, still running, still available. Uncollapse by clicking the pill again. Ungrouping breaks the group entirely. The tabs scatter back into the tab strip, keeping their position and state. Neither action closes any tabs.

Groups are local to each window. A group in one window is separate from every other window. If you merge windows, groups merge too, keeping their tabs together. If you move a single grouped tab to another window on its own, it drops from its group (because groups only exist when they contain tabs).

## What does not matter

You do not need a colour to create a group. Chrome assigns one by default. You can rename a group without changing its colour, or recolour without renaming. Both are independent edits to the group's metadata.

Grouping by domain, by project, by priority, or by any other scheme you choose is all equally valid. There is no hidden browser logic that rewrites groups or reorganizes them. Colour is purely a visual cue you pick. A red group does not mean "urgent" to Chrome; it means "urgent" to you. If you want red to mean "delete soon" and green to mean "keep", that is your choice, and nothing in the browser changes based on it.

Collapsing a group is not the same as sleeping or suspending tabs. A collapsed tab still pings the server, still runs JavaScript, still uses CPU and memory. If you want to pause a tab's resource use, use a tab suspender. Collapsing is just a visual fold.

## Code example

Here is how the extension creates a group, sets its title and colour, and then collapses it:

async function createAndCollapseGroup(tabIds, title, color) {
  // Create the group and get its ID
  const groupId = await chrome.tabs.group({ tabIds });
  
  // Set the group's title and colour
  await chrome.tabGroups.update(groupId, {
    title: title,
    color: color, // one of: grey, blue, red, yellow, green, pink, purple, cyan, orange
    collapsed: false // initially expanded
  });
  
  // Collapse it to fold the tabs
  await chrome.tabGroups.update(groupId, {
    collapsed: true
  });
}

// Usage:
await createAndCollapseGroup([101, 102, 103], "News research", "red");
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## How Scalpel Manage Tabs shows it

Scalpel Manage Tabs lets you create a group from any selection of tabs. When you tick several tabs and click the group button, the extension prompts you for a title and a colour (one of the nine Chrome colours). It then calls chrome.tabs.group() to add them to the group and chrome.tabGroups.update() to set the title and colour. If your tabs are already grouped, you can ungroup them with a single click, which breaks the group and scatters the tabs back into the strip. The full window view shows your groups as collapsible sections, so you can fold up a whole project to focus on another one.