Today we’re bringing a new update to the beta version of Opera for Android that completely reworks the way you can use and manage your tabs in the browser. This series of tab management features is designed to enhance your browsing experience and to give you tools to bring order to the tab-chaos you’ve been putting off for a while now. This update has been one of the most requested from you, our Android community, and we’re thrilled to finally start testing it in the public beta.
The features that are being added are:

• Tab layout customization
• Tab grouping
• Tab Islands
• Undo recently closed tabs
• Search to find tabs
• Mute tabs
• Find all recently closed tabs

As you can see, we’re talking about quite a few features here, but worry not as we’ll go over each of them so you can clearly understand what they do and how you can get the best out of Opera for Android (beta). 

Over 25 years improving browser tabs

Tabs are just one of those things that come to mind when we’re talking about web browsers – and they make our lives so much easier. Imagine for a moment there being no tabs in your mobile browser! Luckily, we’ve been thinking about these problems since the very beginning – since we introduced the concept of tabs to a web browser back in the early 2000s. 

And we continue to think about tabs nowadays. As a matter of fact we recently did extensive research to better understand how you interact with your tabs on your Android device. We learned and understood what kind of features we needed to add when reworking the tab management system in Opera for Android. 

For example, we understood that around 15% of you have 15 or more tabs open at all times on your Android device. If you do the math, this means that hundreds of millions of people are having a tab chaos in your browsers – and that’s okay! We’re here to make your life easier in that regard. 

With this update, Opera Beta for Android is introducing unmatched support for a broad range of tab management features across the board – we want to bring the best tab management system possible to the mobile browser platform. 

Opera for Android gives you better tab management features

Tab layout customization

Let’s begin with one of the things that will be more recognizable from a visual perspective: the new visual layout and how to customize it. We’ve improved the design of the tabs layout, so when you press the tab icon in the bottom bar of your browser, you’ll see something like this:

The bottom bar has been upgraded to showcase bigger icons that are easier to tap on, and to the left of it we’ve got a new icon that lets you customize the tab layout between the following options:

• Carousel – the classic layout you already know.
• Grid – elegant looking and lets you see more of your open tabs.
• List – optimizes how many of your tabs you can see open at once.

You can quickly change between layouts by pressing the button most to the left of the tab gallery, it will cycle in between the three modes and change its icon depending on which one you’re using.

Tab Grouping

When you choose a layout that you like, you can start manually grouping your tabs by long pressing any of them and dragging it on top of another tab. Once you drop the tab you’re dragging, you will have created a new tab group that you can name and move around your new tab layout.

This feature is especially useful on mobile devices since we rely on our phones and mobile browsers for so many tasks. Grouping tabs lets you organize your mobile browser more effectively than ever before. From shopping to researching, and going through watching memes and socializing – we’re constantly jumping into our web browser, opening new webpages and, all of a sudden, we end up with tab chaos.

So, grouping tabs is definitely something you want to keep up your sleeve if you want to access them later – because let’s be honest, you keep those tabs there just in case you need them in the future. And now that’s become easier than ever before with Opera for Android.

Tab Islands coming to mobile

Talking about grouping tabs, we’re also introducing Tab Islands in this update. This is a feature that our desktop users love, and that we’re now bringing to all of you to try out in Opera Beta for Android.

This setting lets you have a browser that resembles the traditional desktop one, with the tabs always present in the interface. However, if you have many tabs open at the same time it becomes really difficult to navigate them.

You can create a Tab island simply by long pressing one tab and dragging it on top of another – and they will be created automatically when you open a new link from the webpage you’re on, keeping things contextually grouped. And, if you’d rather deactivate the automatic grouping feature, then you can manually do so in the settings menu. 

Undo and find recently closed tabs

Keeping tabs on standby for months in case we need them again is something we all do – actually, our research shows that around 15% of all Android users have 15 or more tabs open at all times. So, what happens if you accidentally close them? Surely, the world would end.

Well, there’s no need to worry and no need for the world to end anymore. If you happen to have closed your tabs by accident, you can now tap the “recently closed tabs” button in the tab gallery bar – to the left of the new tab (“+”) icon – and then swipe to the right on the tab that you want to restore. What’s even better is that you can restore entire groups of tabs in the same way! That way, you don’t risk losing that website with a nice deal you found online or that group of tabs that has all your upcoming travel inspiration in it.

When you tap on the “recently closed tabs” button, you’ll find the last one hundred tabs that you have closed – ensuring that you can easily go back to the tabs that you were looking for. 

Search and find your tabs easily

With this update we’re also introducing a search in tabs feature that helps you find a specific tab using a keyword, in a matter of seconds – this means that you no longer need to scroll through all your open tabs to find that specific one you’re looking for. 

When you open the tab gallery – as you would normally do to switch tabs – you’ll now see a magnifying glass icon in the top right corner. Just press it and type the name of the webpage you’re looking for or something related to it, and as simple as that your sea of tabs becomes easy to navigate with Opera for Android (beta).

Mute any specific tab

Finally, we’ve introduced a feature that lets you mute a specific tab – that way you can silence distracting audio from specific tabs without it affecting your entire browsing session. To mute any specific tab, simply open the tab gallery and press the speaker button that appears on the tabs that are currently playing audio. 

With this feature you don’t need to worry about muting your entire phone every time you open a tab with distracting sounds, simply choose which tab to mute. 

Try the new tab management features today

Download Opera Beta for Android and be among the first to try the most advanced tab management features on mobile browsing. 

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