Google begins roll out of tab groupings in Chrome for Android app

Chrome's Android app is being updated with a new interface for switching tabs, and a new tab grouping feature to help organise open web pages, The Verge quoted a report by 9 to 5 Google.

As reported by The Verge, the new interface and functionality has reportedly been appearing for some users after the release of version 88 of Chrome last month, but doesn't appear to be live for everyone just yet.

The grid layout replaces the previous interface consisting of a vertical list of tabs, and is similar to Chrome's existing iOS tab interface.

The Verge reported that around six tabs are shown onscreen at a time, and these can be swiped to the left or right to close them. Incognito tabs can be accessed via a small icon on the top of the screen.

Meanwhile, Tab groups, are similar to a feature that has been available on Chrome's desktop version since last year, and offer a more convenient way to organize your tabs.

Grouping tabs also gives the user a new shortcut to hop between tabs in the same group via a menu that appears at the bottom of the app. On Android, one can organise tabs into groups from the grid layout screen by dragging them onto one another, and there are also options to form tab groups in the overflow menu, as well as the context menu that opens when a user does a long-press to open a new tab.

Although 9to5Google noted that the features started rolling out last week, they do not appear to be available for every Chrome user yet.

However, one can manually enable them via Chrome's experimental flags. The Verge found that they were able to get them to appear by navigating to chrome://flags in the address bar, and then searching and enabling the 'Tab Grid Layout,' 'Tab Groups,' 'Tab Groups Continuation,' and 'Tab Groups UI Improvements' options.

The Verge found that one will have to restart Chrome twice to get the new interface to appear.