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How to save tab groups in Chrome

You spend twenty minutes color-coding a dozen Chrome tab groups — blue for the client, red for the bug you are chasing, green for docs — collapse the ones you are done with, then a Chrome update wipes the window and every group is gone. To save tab groups in Chrome so they come back exactly as you left them, you need a record of more than URLs: the group title, the group color, and whether each group was collapsed. Chrome's own reopen and most session managers do not keep that — OneTab discards group membership, and Session Buddy saves a flat list that ignores tab groups entirely. Tabwell reads each group through the chrome.tabGroups MV3 API and writes its name, color, and collapsed flag into a local snapshot stored in IndexedDB on your device, so a restore rebuilds the groups instead of handing you a wall of ungrouped tabs. This guide is specifically about preserving that group structure — what gets captured, why a flat list is not a saved group, and how the group attributes travel back on restore. For the general one-click save flow across windows, see the save Chrome tabs guide linked below.

What "saving a tab group" actually has to capture

A Chrome tab group is not just a set of URLs sitting next to each other. Each group carries three attributes Chrome tracks through the chrome.tabGroups API: a title (the label you typed), a color (blue, red, green, and the rest of Chrome's palette), and a collapsed flag (whether the group is folded shut). To save Chrome tab groups properly, all three have to be recorded per group, alongside which tabs belong to which group. Drop any of them and what you reopen is a pile of tabs, not the groups you built.

How Tabwell records the group structure

When Tabwell takes a snapshot it walks every open window with chrome.tabs, then reads each group's metadata with chrome.tabGroups. The snapshot it writes is a JSON record where every tab knows its group, and every group knows its name, color, and collapsed state. That record goes straight into local IndexedDB via dexie — no account, no server, nothing leaves the device. Because the group attributes live in the snapshot rather than being inferred at restore time, the round-trip is lossless.

Step by step: save your tab groups

  1. Install Tabwell from the Chrome Web Store and pin it to the toolbar.
  2. Arrange your windows and tab groups the way you want them remembered — name them, color them, collapse the ones you are done with.
  3. Open the Tabwell side panel (Chrome's chrome.sidePanel API) and click Save snapshot, or trigger the same save from the keyboard shortcut or the right-click menu.
  4. The snapshot is written to IndexedDB with each group's title, color, and collapsed flag attached, ready to restore later.

Why a flat list is not a saved group

This is where Tabwell differs from the tools most power users already run. OneTab (2M users, 4.5 stars) collapses your tabs into a plain URL list and discards group membership; there is no group title or color to bring back because it never stored one. Session Buddy (1M users, 4.66 stars) saves whole windows but treats them as a flat list and ignores tab groups. Tab Session Manager keeps group data as ad-hoc metadata rather than restoring real Chrome groups. So when you "save" with those, the group structure is gone the moment you reopen — which is the exact gap this page exists to close.

Restoring the groups, not just the tabs

Saving is only half the round-trip. On restore, Tabwell recreates the tabs in their original window layout and rebuilds each group through chrome.tabGroups with its original name, color, and collapsed state — so a collapsed "Archive" group comes back collapsed, not expanded. The full restore walkthrough lives in the restore Chrome tabs guide linked below; this page stays focused on the save side.

What the Free tier keeps

Every install starts with a 14-day Pro trial, no credit card. After the trial, the Free tier keeps your latest 5 snapshots with manual save and restore and runs an auto-snapshot every 60 minutes — group attributes included in every snapshot regardless of tier. Pro raises the 5-snapshot cap to unlimited, indexes every saved tab for full-text search, and auto-snapshots every 5 minutes, for $3.99/month, $29/year, or $19 one-time for the first 1,000 Founders buyers.

FAQ

Will my group colors and collapsed state come back on restore?

Yes. Tabwell records each group's title, color, and collapsed flag in the snapshot via the chrome.tabGroups API, then writes all three back when you restore. A collapsed group returns collapsed and a blue group returns blue. Nothing about the group structure is inferred or guessed at restore time.

Do OneTab or Session Buddy save Chrome tab groups?

No. OneTab flattens your tabs into a plain URL list and discards group membership, so there is no group title or color to restore. Session Buddy saves whole windows but ignores tab groups and reopens them as a flat list. Preserving group name, color, and collapsed state is the specific gap Tabwell fills.

What is the chrome.tabGroups API?

It is the Chrome extension API that exposes tab group metadata — each group's title, color, and collapsed state — to extensions running on Manifest V3. Tabwell reads it to capture your groups on save and calls it again to rebuild them on restore. It is the reason the group structure survives the round-trip instead of being lost.

Can I save a single tab group instead of the whole window?

A Tabwell snapshot captures every open window by default, with all of their groups intact, so a normal save already includes the group you care about. If you only want the window in front of you, scope the save to the current window from the side panel. Either way each group keeps its name, color, and collapsed state.

Does saving tab groups need a specific Chrome version?

Chrome 114 is the minimum version Tabwell supports, because it relies on the chrome.sidePanel API introduced in that release. The chrome.tabGroups API it uses to read your groups is available well before 114. Edge and other Chromium browsers may work but are not officially supported, and Firefox and Safari are not supported.

How many tab-group snapshots can I save for free?

Every install gets a 14-day Pro trial with no credit card. After that, the Free tier keeps your latest 5 snapshots with manual save and restore and a 60-minute auto-snapshot, and group attributes are stored in every snapshot at no extra cost. Pro removes the 5-snapshot cap and adds full-text search and 5-minute auto-snapshots for $3.99/month or $19 one-time during Founders pricing.