Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome have been borrowing ideas from each other for years, and it looks like Microsoft has discovered another Chrome feature worth porting over. As Windows report noticed a new Tab Groups button is starting to appear in Edge Canary for vertical tab users. Instead of searching for a specific group in the open tabs, the new button provides a place to view existing groups or create a new one.
This isn’t an entirely new feature for Edge. Microsoft’s browser has supported tab groups for some time, including the use of vertical tabs. What is changing is how accessible these groups are. This may seem like a small tweak to the interface, but anyone who regularly ends up with dozens of tabs open will probably understand why it could be useful.
Edge puts groups of tabs in one place
When vertical tabs are turned on, the new Tab Groups button is located at the top of Edge’s sidebar. Clicking on it will show you the existing groups, making it much easier to jump between different tab collections without scrolling through the entire sidebar. You can also create a new group from the same location. This idea can be especially useful if you use groups to separate different parts of your browsing. You might have one for work, another for research, and a third for all the articles you’re sure to read later.
One thing is particularly familiar about Microsoft’s approach: Chrome already does something similar. Google has its own Page Groups button on the vertical tabs interface, which provides a central view of saved groups and allows users to create new ones. Edge’s version follows much the same logic, down to making the feature easily accessible from the vertical sidebar. Anyone moving between the two browsers should at least not have much of a learning curve.
Don’t look for it in Edge yet
There’s a catch. Microsoft is currently testing the change in Edge Canary, so most people using the regular version of Edge won’t see the new button yet. Canary is where Microsoft experiments with features before deciding whether they’re ready for a wider release. Things can change significantly during the process, and some experiments never make it to the stable browser.
If you’re already using Canary and want to check, you need to enable vertical tabs. Edge allows you to turn them on from the tab menu or browser settings. So Microsoft isn’t reinventing tab groups here. It simply makes an existing feature much more accessible, even if the solution happens to be awfully similar to the one Chrome got first.
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