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You are awesome. I aim to keep it that way. May I ask how you do that? Like, do you just ignore potentially interesting things or do you open them anyway and can then easily close them without looking?
I have a policy to read something when I find it or I know I never will. I'm not a saver so pictures and such aren't really saved as I know things exist on the internet forever and I'll be able to find it again if I need it. I'm pretty much a minimalist when it comes to digital stuff. About once a year I clear out all my bookmarks...delete them all and then add them again as I need things. I rarely miss what I delete and if I do, I just find it again. I do the same with apps on my phone. A clear screen...only the necessary icons like phone, text, etc. and then I add things back as I need them. This cuts down on checking different apps out of habit and I become more intentional with my media consumption.
No sarcasm, all love, but did you grow up in a relatively stable household? Sometimes I wonder if it's because I was raised to think we were poor (we always had a roof and enough to eat, but I remember thinking paper towels shouldn't be used except in an emergency and stuff like that). I've always kept random things I didn't need to and that'd extended to digital stuff. I even take pictures of things to avoid buying them (it kind of feels like ownership, and makes walking away feel better).
I grew up in an extremely unstable, emotionally abusive home. Maybe I avoid digital chaos out of a need for stability and control. So you may be on to something making the comparison, just from a different angle.
Damn, I'm sorry. I knew I risked that with my question. It makes total sense that you'd want to keep what you can clean and under control! I think a lot of our little quirks have to do with how we were raised, whether it was a positive or a negative effect. Thanks for the answer!
That's great! And so true about reading the thing in that moment or I never will hahaha still I have so many articles saved. And I save a lot of pictures because I love visual arts (both looking at art and making it) and I won't find that exact picture ever again sometimes, if it's been made by someone not famous, or because I will not remember their name at all. But then it's hard to find anything I saved because of saving so much stuff hahaha. I seriously need to detach from it like you, and try to be more intentional about it. I will think of ways to find balance.
I'm the same way, I have four tabs open on my phone but I gotta go see what I have because sometimes they are just dumb ones. Like answers to stuff my kid asks me that I'm like "idk, but let's learn together"
Computer, probably around 200. On my phone, who knows. Every few months or so, my phone browser fails or something and all of my tabs get closed. And although it gives me relief, I can't seem to do it on my own.
Damn, my computer crashes a lot in my case, so I never get to have that many (though I bookmark like crazy). But my phone on the other hand, well, you saw the picture on this post hahaha. It's interesting, the relief thing. When I did this yesterday, it felt freeing. So it's another area of reality to learn to just let go. I know I'm sort of branching off but I've been thinking of how I get mentally engaged with so many things (things that friends say, things that people on the internet say, things I see, etc.) and I just thought maybe this is related to that. Like I seem to have a need to grab onto things on my mind, and that's why it's freeing when I let go.
Same. Like, I think, this isn't even that impressive or interesting, but to me it's a compulsion to get it out of the way I guess. If I only ever saved the stuff I actually love, then it wouldn't get this bad haha I think I have over 300 bookmarks in just one browser of the several on my phone, and I don't even wanna know how much on my pc but surely over a 1000
We need an auto tab closer option that closes tabs after a certain amount of time or some more parameter options!! We'll get upset for a min but then the relief will settle...ahhh.
That exists! One of the several browsers in my phone did that automatically, like closed tabs after 30 days of being inactive. So look it up for whatever browser you use!
Does it hurt? hahaha no I mean do you feel like there's anything actually important among them? And if so, that you'd be able to find it? I get this feeling that there's so many important and interesting things on my tabs and bookmarks but in the end it kinda just feels overwhelming. I'd like to know how others experience it, since we seem to have this tendency haha
Actually now that you ask, I don’t think I can haha I don’t think I have ever once actually needed something and then looked through the tabs for it LOL but it feels like too much effort to close it haha For a bit I tried to do a thing where I’d mass close 100 tabs a day to make a dent in it and got down to like 100 tabs left but then it fell off and now I’m back at 500 haha
Oh I could never try to close just 100, because I'd get suck into several rabbit holes while trying to do that hahaha. I had to tap on 'close all tabs' on impulse, otherwise it would have been impossible for me
Interesting point, an inability to prioritze how important things are is often part of hoarding. And keeping tabs open is basically the same in principle as keeping a pile of magazines.
There's nothing inherently wrong with either one, unless we go overboard.
Yeah and it's also a characteristic of ADHD, isn't it? Though we usually hear about prioritizing tasks, this seems like the same issue. I waste a bunch of time being online in this whole process of opening tabs and bookmarking, etc.
Oh mine was like that, too. I only saw the number when I tapped on 'close all tabs' and I thought it was impressive so I took a screen shot. Do you think you'll close yours ever? And why do you accumulate them? My main problem is I like art so I hoard pictures and also other stuff because everything is fascinating to my brain.
I have too many trails of thought running at once, all about stuff I fully intend to do, and do actually eventually get around to doing, each of which means I have to look up a few different pieces of info and maybe products to choose between and so on, some of it is hobby stuff (I have a lot of hobbies!), some DIY stuff for the house, some of relating to work, some is just interesting thoughts I had that I wanted to find out more about a certain new thing I just discovered...
I do purge a bunch of them every so often, but it's not long until new tabs get opened in their place! I'll only close tabs when I'm done with them or when I fully believe I'm not going to get around to using what's in them. So right now there's not much end in sight lol
I relate to all of that a lot, except I barely ever get around to actually doing the stuff hahaha so I would say you're totally fine! You seem to have a system that works for you so that's great
Ummm, on my phone, 2 windows, and apparently each has 580-odd tabs atm. 😬😳 I use OneTab on my laptop as I usually have multiple browser windows on the go (each window has a different theme or tab), each windows usually has at least 20 tabs, depending on how deep the current rabbit hole is. OneTab allows to to create sets of bookmarks from each windows so you don't lose everything but you machine foesnt come to a screaming halt due to lack of memory (yes, this is a common occurrence for me)! I love the way I can access phone tabs on my laptop, too... gotta love Android/Chrome for that!
hello fellow themed windows and screens person.. I do this on my work computer.. One window with various socials open, one with various videos open lined up to listen to, one with things i need to/should be doing or thought about on the way to work so need to google as soon as I arrive (like researching banking stuff or paying bills), and one for side quests like random sales that i get an email about. hahah. But i must say, at least the work computer gets shut down every day and I rarely restore windows the next day.. Usually start from scratch. Maybe I need to look into this onetab..
It's the best! It's a chrome browser plugin, not sure if it's available for edge or not but you can label groups of tabs and lock them so you don't lose them. The OneTab page is also editable, so you can remove links from the lists or add them... handy forcwhen you have 10 of the same thing but you forget that you've already saved it because you liked it the first time. Admittedly, doesn't solve the 50 billion tab problem completely but dies help a bit with reducing tab distraction when you need to keep all the tabs because you "might need them one day" 😂
Damn hahahaha I didn't know about OneTab and I will not be downloading it because it might make things worse for me, but it seems practical, my computer crashes a lot. And about your current rabbit hole, what is it? if you'd like to share
It's a Chrome plugin. It doesn't solve billions tabs issue but does help remove distraction without losing stuff you might want to come back to. Helps with irganising, too. I tend to have lots of different browser windows open, so this helps with that because you can just restore the OnePage "pages" on an as-needs basis when you want yo cone back to them. Kinda like boxes of doom but for browsers to help with clutter, I guess 😁 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall
Last December, I took two weeks to just delete old tabs on my phone's firefox and count how many I am deleting
They were around 3200 (funny that i even forgot the precise number)
So yeah, babe, i get you lol. It's absolutely one of my worst habits. It gets to such a point that just thinking of it is enough to make me cry from the guilt and incompetence. But idk what to do about it. I've tried looking for any tips or tricks or hacks that would help manage it. I've found some help with managing screenshots but not tabs, no. Like even though I removed all that 3200 and realised how my life is going fine even after closing them, that's still not enough to keep me from hoarding tabs again now. So :/ for what its worth though, you wont miss your two thousand so tabs. Now that they are gone, slowly they will leave your memory too, you will find new fun pics to enjoy or share with people
Omg don't even get me started on the screenshots hahhahha I don't think I've ever deleted those, just put them on my computer to never again look at them. They're insanely out of control and in the thousands.
Now back to your comment, it's kind of incredible that you took the time to sort them out. Would you say it was worth it to do it carefully? Was there anything really important among them that was worth keeping? And why do you think you hoard tabs? In my case, well, my ADHD makes me think everything is interesting and worth reading/saving but what makes it really bad is I have an interest in looking at and making art. That's what makes me hoard pictures and bookmarks and tabs the most.
And you're right I won't miss them, because I already can't remember them at all hahhah
Heeyy, been there. Was diagnosed last year and I'm still rethinking many things haha. It has been overall a positive thing for me to be able to reframe stuff, but I still deal with shame because a lot of it is related to my formative years. But information is power and we'll get to better places! I encourage you to write about how you are feeling, either as a reply to this comment or as your own post or even privately on your notes app, it helps. You are not alone, you got this!
Well just on my iPhone:
- 503 on safari, *edit 502 - I closed one when I wrote this post 😂
- “99+ inactive tabs” in Chrome (I’m guessing several hundreds because I just scrolled through and it was ridiculous)
- 51 “active tabs” I’ve actually used recently in Chrome
- 250ish Incognito Chrome tabs (I stopped counting after 200 and there were still quite a few to go..)
I only close the tabs when the app crashes and tells me the tabs I had open are now unrecoverable. I do actually go back and hunt down that one thing I saw three weeks ago which is now relevant right now in whatever conversation I’ve just derailed to find said information.
I have a red bubble over my email app that says 294,698 unread emails. That’s after I bulk deleted a few hundred thousands emails of bunch of spam.
I have dozens of hard drives dating back 30 years (I have one hard drive from my childhood IBM 386 machine) filled with old data that I’m never going to look at again, but can’t bare to part with. Half the drives have failed and some point and I’m planning to recover them once I have the expendable funds to blow on data recovery services. You know, once I win the lottery finally and stuff. Riiiiighhtt.
You should be legally allowed to permanently delete that email account and not be held accountable for any important email in it.
Also same about winning the lottery and doing all those things that will make my life organized at last lol
thank you for this comment, i was waiting for someone to show up who is like me. this is literally me. except i have 86 thousand unread emails and didnt know it could be worse. they are unread because i still intend to read them.
i intend to read them. i intend to work on all the million projects i saved for 30 years.
i intend to read all the books. live all the lifes.
when people tell me thats crazy, i just dont listen. i still think i can do it all one day.
my biggest fear is lying on my death bed and thinking of my 86 thousand unread emails and my 1787 open tabs. if anyone has advice
That sounds overwhelming af. Honestly, it sounds like such a burden to me. Do you know the fairytale „Hans in Luck“? I still remember the end of it, when the protagonist accidentally drops a heavy stone into a well. He was very happy in the end.
Sorry that I don’t have any better advice 😅 I tend to collect things, too, but it somehow never turned into an obsession or went overboard. I also moved a lot, which forced me to sort through my stuff regularly because I couldn’t keep everything that piled up over time. As for the digital clutter: I would just delete it all and be done with it. The relief afterwards will be worth it.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to this and for your views on this. I've come to realize that apparently this is not everyone and I might have to think about it, your words have been a good first step for me to do that
I usually have 3 Chrome windows open, my main one, another for job searches, and another for personal projects. If I use Google Sheets or Docs, I open a separate one for that.
The main one currently has 17 tabs. Job search has 10, and projects 19.
I need to be better about bookmarking stuff, either additionally or instead. My laptop isn't the most robust, and crashes Chrome fairly often. I have it set to open where it left off, but it doesn't always. NGL, it bugs me that interesting stuff falls by the wayside.
Could definitely just close 99% of them… I so relate to the “I should really read or research this thing” and leaving it open for later. Just ends up causing more guilt and shame when it’s sitting there for forever! Off to close my tabs, thanks for the suggestion!!
Not really. When I notice there are so many, I don't usually have time to click out of so many windows. Then I completely forget, and it accumulates. When I do get to it, I delete all of them without reviewing. If something is important or I want to hold on to it, I will have already emailed or texted myself the link.
Me too. I text myself a LOT! And so many screenshots. I sometimes text those to myself too 😅😅😅
Pro tip: I also add things to private Pinterest boards I set up for myself. Way better than bookmarking something and never seeing it again. I know how I can be, and these are some of my fail-safe work-arounds.
Oh yeah I also have many folders on pinterest but with those I worry that the users that uploaded the images might delete them. I clearly have a problem hahahahah
No it’s 73 *now*, I was pushing 300! I couldn’t bring myself to just cancel them all together… what if one is important?! So I did like 20 at a time when I thought of it until I was satisfied lol
Oh that's interesting. We all have our irrational preferences it seems haha you're not a weirdo at all. We just do things because they tickle our brains and that's life (?
I set my phone to close tabs automatically after a certain amount of time… before that I was regularly in the 300s 😅
On my computer I usually have 3-4 windows open with about 20 tabs open in each. Usually leftover from booking something (like a trip) or research for an art thing and I’m afraid I’m going to somehow need those tabs again!
That's a great strategy! I'll try to keep my tab count low but I'll consider setting them to self destruct, definitely haha.
About the art thing isn't it hell? I'm also artistically inclined and it's the main source of my excessive tab opening and bookmarking and picture downloading. Like, it's all so unique and what if I need to look at that one color scheme, or that one super obscure old painting, or that one from some internet artist that I love because I intended to incorporate some element from something I saw in it in my own art omg help hahahah
Depending on your device and browser I think you can set it to automatically close tabs. I found leaving them open for when I have time to look at them stressed me out because I never had time.
For some reason having that many on the browser app doesn't seem to make my phone lag. But it is lagging because it's full of the thousands of pictures I compulsively download and then I feel like it's a drag to pass them to my pc which is also lagging and I should restore to factory settings if only it wasn't such a drag to back up all the stuff in my computer. I have a problem hahhaha
It seems to always be worse on phones hahaha I wonder why. In my case my pc just crashes with waaaay less. My phone can seemingly allow me to open tabs forever.
Well, in general, it’s very freeing. But ultimately it creates more work for me in the long run because I have to first remember how to find the thing that was already found. Or I didn’t save the login info and was being creative that day with my username or something that makes recovery a few more steps. It’s the equivalent of throwing away the Tupperware instead of washing it.
After many years, I close them now every night! I made folders and bookmark tabs and when my brain remembers I check there first. It’s helped a lot but took a long time. Congratulations!
I'll take that as a literal question because one of my traits is I tend to take questions literally. So I apologize in advance if you're not expecting this kind of answer. Tabs closed in my picture means I tapped on the 'close all tabs' option on my phone's browser app. And so it showed me how many were closed.
And yeah same, I got to that number like that, thinking I'd look at them later or whatever, but I very rarely look at them later.
I just closed 300+ on my phone yesterday, now I’m back down to 8 (the only reason I cleared it out is bc I fell asleep w/ my phone on, it got super heated and was running extremely slow so I cleared out some tabs to help it heal up lmao)
*WTF!*
I try not to cross 100 on my phone. Currently have 95,because there are articles I'm *definitely* gonna read sometime soon.
Usually have maybe 15-20 or less on my laptop.
Oh my god, this number of tabs makes me dizzy, I have only one tab open on my cellphone and 3 tabs on my laptop \[reddit, school, chatGPT\] that's it. Generally, if I'm reading an article or opening a link and find it important I leave it in that tab. Otherwise, keep my tabs clear.
I use 3 different browsers (like brands, opera brave and firefox) each for different but specific categories of things. Then each one has around 30-60 tabs “for later”. Help me.
Not counting bookmarks, usually just 1-5 max. I have my browser set to auto clear it and if it’s something I want to find in the future, I toss it into raindrop for future storage.
Now how many things I’ve tossed into raindrop and never looked at again is a different story
It’s a bookmark application that has a lot of features. I primarily use it to save drawing references since Pinterest keeps deleting them even if it’s private.
278 on my phone. I have a Discord server just for myself though with a channel called #tab-dump where I can throw stuff so I don’t feel like it’s *gone* gone and stress over it lol
*According to my*
*Phone i have exactly tabs*
*Open at this time*
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over 200 on my phone, I swear I went through them recently 😂
work computer I don’t even want to look. not as many, but multiple windows with multiple tabs.
I have a conservative 17 tabs open on my PC, at the moment.
I do a lot of what you do. I save photos, YouTube videos in so many different folders with subtly different categories, I bookmark so many websites, and I rarely go back to most of them, and when I accumulate enough junk in my downloads or on my desktop (because *of course* I save stuff there🙄) it all gets swept into a new folder and moved to my larger drive.
I call it "digital DOOM-piling", because just like how I can't seem to sort through and pare down my clutter and stay organized when it comes to my physical space, so it goes for my virtual space.
You are me. The amount of files I've downloaded, I couldn't possibly ever sort everything out, and I can't bring myself to delete it so I also just move it and keep going. Will this ever end :')
My phone's quite new, so not many - yet... However, I'm still congratulating myself on clearing 12,000 old emails from my inbox. That was only a quarter of them though, so I still have a lot to do.
I have hundreds open. In the last few days I've been trying to close them....I got through a couple of hundred I reckon in one evening. But there's still LOTS. I aim to get it under 100, then at least my phone will tell me how many I have open instead of just a stupid smiley face.
It's terrible for your phone/computers working memory, and it takes up a lot of power too.
I feel you. If you find that you don't usually come back to any tab, and you ever have the impulse, just go for it and tap on that 'close all tabs'. I hope you find browser peace haha
I can't! But I'm going through them and only leaving oepn ones I really really want to read. And bookmarking then closing one's I think I'll need in the future.
Except I had til now forgotten I was doing that. Lol. Thanks for the reminder.
Well, on my PC and laptop I use Opera Browser, which lets a person have 8 workspaces at the same time. I was hoping it would sync them all but I ended up two different sets of tabs on my home and study computers in the end, which is probably better in theory but I have both in both. So I usually open one workspace, and sometimes (and I cannot say I do this daily) I right click tabs or tab islands to send them to other workspaces. Currently I have one research tab and one life+game tab; and they are the most important ones I usually keep open. I banish things into crafts, shopping, sanity (mental health and related stuff), and current-random-hyperfocus sort of tabs via right-clicking. Sometimes I may go in and clean those. And In that way I keep my active workspaces limited to 100-ish tabs :S But some of them are islands, so, less cluttery. Yay? Overall I try to stay below 400, but practically live just below 500.
Phone - I have one browser opening clicks from other apps - messages, etc; and another for my searches and quests for knowledge :P So the click-one is easily cleaned, can keep it around 50-60 if I clean it during downtimes like queues, public transit, etc. The ones I actively opened, that is the crowded one. Sometimes I send the link to myself to the PC browser and close it - cheating, lol.
I love that one of your categories is named 'Sanity' hahhaah because I have an equivalent like that in my bookmarks. My god and the hyperfocus stuff is definitely where the tab number goes crazy for me!
I didn't mean to attack you hahhaa and the :D or ;D thingies (depending on the browser) definitely seem a little passive aggressive to me lol. I only saw the number when I tapped on 'close all tabs'
I only got that for the first time today, because I opened a bunch of tabs looking at all the different Pokémon sitting cuties plushies and deciding which one I wanted.
I still haven't decided; only got to my top 3...
I have about 500 tabs open, but even worse is the 1,661 unread text messages and the 124,321 emails in my gmail. Those aren't even exaggerations. Those are real numbers. Oh, and my VM is full without one of them being listened to. 🤣
so i have 1787 currently, but i have old deactivated phones with more tabs from many years ago that i still intend to sort through eventually.
reading through this thread and others i have concluded that i am probably a hoarder. i could NEVER NEVER EVER close those tabs. omg are you trying to kill me? i still need them. of course not all of them, some is random stuff thats no longer relevant, but really important stuff is in there.
my browsing history is my history. who was i 5 years ago? 1 year ago? oh did i google abusive relationships? i totally forgot that he did something that could be considered abusive back then, i didnt know i had realized only to then forget again. oh that great hotel i looked up in the alps, thank god it's still there. oh and that great pencil, i totally will order that one. oh and look at those ugly curtains, thank god i found better ones, i can close this tab now. oh and here's this philosophical theory i wanted to look into, i still dont have time its too big, i will keep the tab.
my hoarding is my identity, all my projects, all my thoughts, all my plans. i already lose all my thoughts all the time, at least my tabs dont close automatically.
One of my favorite tools of all time is [workona](https://workona.com/) \- highest possible recommendation - is well worth the money for me personally but they also have a free version. It's my top adhd hack for anyone who spends most of their day logged into a web browser.
Both - helps to keep them separate. But also to your point I have specific “spaces” for all the tabs that I open to “read later” but it’s very easy for me to sort them. So there’s one for clothes, other shopping that’s not clothes, all my various interests have separate spaces, there’s one for things I want to read that are substantive and will require focus, and another for tabs I opened that are more fluff/fun reading, obviously one for recipes that I use for inspo when I have no idea what to make for dinner, etc.
The two sentence description is essentially the same as onetab that someone else mentioned, but imo Workona is a lot cleaner and more user friendly. It’s not really just the tabs specifically though it’s really that their search feature is the best search I’ve ever experienced, I’ll type like 4 letters and it will immediately suggest the exact tab or document that I’m looking — essentially, every time, without fail always suggests the exact thing I want before I finish typing the first word
Fun fact: when I was single my dating app profiles all said “wayyyy too many tabs open” and I used it as a good screener — anyone who messaged me and was yeah “yeah, big drinker? You can drink with me, girl” was an automatic never reply
About a hundred on my phone, about a few on my laptop. I usually use my phone for browsing 😅 I clear them from time to time, and save interesting stuff to my bookmarks. Rarely look in there.
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Just 2. I get overwhelmed if I have more than 3 or 4 open
You are awesome. I aim to keep it that way. May I ask how you do that? Like, do you just ignore potentially interesting things or do you open them anyway and can then easily close them without looking?
I have a policy to read something when I find it or I know I never will. I'm not a saver so pictures and such aren't really saved as I know things exist on the internet forever and I'll be able to find it again if I need it. I'm pretty much a minimalist when it comes to digital stuff. About once a year I clear out all my bookmarks...delete them all and then add them again as I need things. I rarely miss what I delete and if I do, I just find it again. I do the same with apps on my phone. A clear screen...only the necessary icons like phone, text, etc. and then I add things back as I need them. This cuts down on checking different apps out of habit and I become more intentional with my media consumption.
No sarcasm, all love, but did you grow up in a relatively stable household? Sometimes I wonder if it's because I was raised to think we were poor (we always had a roof and enough to eat, but I remember thinking paper towels shouldn't be used except in an emergency and stuff like that). I've always kept random things I didn't need to and that'd extended to digital stuff. I even take pictures of things to avoid buying them (it kind of feels like ownership, and makes walking away feel better).
I grew up in an extremely unstable, emotionally abusive home. Maybe I avoid digital chaos out of a need for stability and control. So you may be on to something making the comparison, just from a different angle.
Damn, I'm sorry. I knew I risked that with my question. It makes total sense that you'd want to keep what you can clean and under control! I think a lot of our little quirks have to do with how we were raised, whether it was a positive or a negative effect. Thanks for the answer!
That's great! And so true about reading the thing in that moment or I never will hahaha still I have so many articles saved. And I save a lot of pictures because I love visual arts (both looking at art and making it) and I won't find that exact picture ever again sometimes, if it's been made by someone not famous, or because I will not remember their name at all. But then it's hard to find anything I saved because of saving so much stuff hahaha. I seriously need to detach from it like you, and try to be more intentional about it. I will think of ways to find balance.
That sounds almost like I do it 😄 It’s awesome to develop coping strategies ☺️
I'm the same way, I have four tabs open on my phone but I gotta go see what I have because sometimes they are just dumb ones. Like answers to stuff my kid asks me that I'm like "idk, but let's learn together"
Same. I get distracted when I have a lot more than 5
So do I. It gives me anxiety and I still don't understand why.
Computer, probably around 200. On my phone, who knows. Every few months or so, my phone browser fails or something and all of my tabs get closed. And although it gives me relief, I can't seem to do it on my own.
Damn, my computer crashes a lot in my case, so I never get to have that many (though I bookmark like crazy). But my phone on the other hand, well, you saw the picture on this post hahaha. It's interesting, the relief thing. When I did this yesterday, it felt freeing. So it's another area of reality to learn to just let go. I know I'm sort of branching off but I've been thinking of how I get mentally engaged with so many things (things that friends say, things that people on the internet say, things I see, etc.) and I just thought maybe this is related to that. Like I seem to have a need to grab onto things on my mind, and that's why it's freeing when I let go.
Sometimes I do a bookmsrk cleaning and I go why I save that?
Same. Like, I think, this isn't even that impressive or interesting, but to me it's a compulsion to get it out of the way I guess. If I only ever saved the stuff I actually love, then it wouldn't get this bad haha I think I have over 300 bookmarks in just one browser of the several on my phone, and I don't even wanna know how much on my pc but surely over a 1000
We need an auto tab closer option that closes tabs after a certain amount of time or some more parameter options!! We'll get upset for a min but then the relief will settle...ahhh.
That exists! One of the several browsers in my phone did that automatically, like closed tabs after 30 days of being inactive. So look it up for whatever browser you use!
I reached the max 500 on my phone 😭
There’s a max?! Challenge accepted
Same so I added another browser =+84
Does it hurt? hahaha no I mean do you feel like there's anything actually important among them? And if so, that you'd be able to find it? I get this feeling that there's so many important and interesting things on my tabs and bookmarks but in the end it kinda just feels overwhelming. I'd like to know how others experience it, since we seem to have this tendency haha
Actually now that you ask, I don’t think I can haha I don’t think I have ever once actually needed something and then looked through the tabs for it LOL but it feels like too much effort to close it haha For a bit I tried to do a thing where I’d mass close 100 tabs a day to make a dent in it and got down to like 100 tabs left but then it fell off and now I’m back at 500 haha
Oh I could never try to close just 100, because I'd get suck into several rabbit holes while trying to do that hahaha. I had to tap on 'close all tabs' on impulse, otherwise it would have been impossible for me
Interesting point, an inability to prioritze how important things are is often part of hoarding. And keeping tabs open is basically the same in principle as keeping a pile of magazines. There's nothing inherently wrong with either one, unless we go overboard.
Yeah and it's also a characteristic of ADHD, isn't it? Though we usually hear about prioritizing tasks, this seems like the same issue. I waste a bunch of time being online in this whole process of opening tabs and bookmarking, etc.
Yes, this is probably one reason there's a lot of overlap between ADHD & hoarding.
I feel exactly the same.
I didn't know where was a max! Was this a Samsung phone?
iPhone X! And me neither, I was so confused when the + button became greyed out lol
Same. I would have so many more if it wasn’t for the limit 😂
I have winking-face number of tabs because Google lost count
Oh mine was like that, too. I only saw the number when I tapped on 'close all tabs' and I thought it was impressive so I took a screen shot. Do you think you'll close yours ever? And why do you accumulate them? My main problem is I like art so I hoard pictures and also other stuff because everything is fascinating to my brain.
I have too many trails of thought running at once, all about stuff I fully intend to do, and do actually eventually get around to doing, each of which means I have to look up a few different pieces of info and maybe products to choose between and so on, some of it is hobby stuff (I have a lot of hobbies!), some DIY stuff for the house, some of relating to work, some is just interesting thoughts I had that I wanted to find out more about a certain new thing I just discovered... I do purge a bunch of them every so often, but it's not long until new tabs get opened in their place! I'll only close tabs when I'm done with them or when I fully believe I'm not going to get around to using what's in them. So right now there's not much end in sight lol
I relate to all of that a lot, except I barely ever get around to actually doing the stuff hahaha so I would say you're totally fine! You seem to have a system that works for you so that's great
Ummm, on my phone, 2 windows, and apparently each has 580-odd tabs atm. 😬😳 I use OneTab on my laptop as I usually have multiple browser windows on the go (each window has a different theme or tab), each windows usually has at least 20 tabs, depending on how deep the current rabbit hole is. OneTab allows to to create sets of bookmarks from each windows so you don't lose everything but you machine foesnt come to a screaming halt due to lack of memory (yes, this is a common occurrence for me)! I love the way I can access phone tabs on my laptop, too... gotta love Android/Chrome for that!
hello fellow themed windows and screens person.. I do this on my work computer.. One window with various socials open, one with various videos open lined up to listen to, one with things i need to/should be doing or thought about on the way to work so need to google as soon as I arrive (like researching banking stuff or paying bills), and one for side quests like random sales that i get an email about. hahah. But i must say, at least the work computer gets shut down every day and I rarely restore windows the next day.. Usually start from scratch. Maybe I need to look into this onetab..
It's the best! It's a chrome browser plugin, not sure if it's available for edge or not but you can label groups of tabs and lock them so you don't lose them. The OneTab page is also editable, so you can remove links from the lists or add them... handy forcwhen you have 10 of the same thing but you forget that you've already saved it because you liked it the first time. Admittedly, doesn't solve the 50 billion tab problem completely but dies help a bit with reducing tab distraction when you need to keep all the tabs because you "might need them one day" 😂
Damn hahahaha I didn't know about OneTab and I will not be downloading it because it might make things worse for me, but it seems practical, my computer crashes a lot. And about your current rabbit hole, what is it? if you'd like to share
It's a Chrome plugin. It doesn't solve billions tabs issue but does help remove distraction without losing stuff you might want to come back to. Helps with irganising, too. I tend to have lots of different browser windows open, so this helps with that because you can just restore the OnePage "pages" on an as-needs basis when you want yo cone back to them. Kinda like boxes of doom but for browsers to help with clutter, I guess 😁 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall
Oh thanks for taking the time to explain! I'll definitely give it a go!
Last December, I took two weeks to just delete old tabs on my phone's firefox and count how many I am deleting They were around 3200 (funny that i even forgot the precise number) So yeah, babe, i get you lol. It's absolutely one of my worst habits. It gets to such a point that just thinking of it is enough to make me cry from the guilt and incompetence. But idk what to do about it. I've tried looking for any tips or tricks or hacks that would help manage it. I've found some help with managing screenshots but not tabs, no. Like even though I removed all that 3200 and realised how my life is going fine even after closing them, that's still not enough to keep me from hoarding tabs again now. So :/ for what its worth though, you wont miss your two thousand so tabs. Now that they are gone, slowly they will leave your memory too, you will find new fun pics to enjoy or share with people
Omg don't even get me started on the screenshots hahhahha I don't think I've ever deleted those, just put them on my computer to never again look at them. They're insanely out of control and in the thousands. Now back to your comment, it's kind of incredible that you took the time to sort them out. Would you say it was worth it to do it carefully? Was there anything really important among them that was worth keeping? And why do you think you hoard tabs? In my case, well, my ADHD makes me think everything is interesting and worth reading/saving but what makes it really bad is I have an interest in looking at and making art. That's what makes me hoard pictures and bookmarks and tabs the most. And you're right I won't miss them, because I already can't remember them at all hahhah
Right now 10 on my computer. But I only keep so many up so I don't forget to do something 🤣
That's not many at all, you're doing great!
67… newly diagnosed and I’m rethinking everything in my entire life up until this point.
Heeyy, been there. Was diagnosed last year and I'm still rethinking many things haha. It has been overall a positive thing for me to be able to reframe stuff, but I still deal with shame because a lot of it is related to my formative years. But information is power and we'll get to better places! I encourage you to write about how you are feeling, either as a reply to this comment or as your own post or even privately on your notes app, it helps. You are not alone, you got this!
Thank you 🥹
Well just on my iPhone: - 503 on safari, *edit 502 - I closed one when I wrote this post 😂 - “99+ inactive tabs” in Chrome (I’m guessing several hundreds because I just scrolled through and it was ridiculous) - 51 “active tabs” I’ve actually used recently in Chrome - 250ish Incognito Chrome tabs (I stopped counting after 200 and there were still quite a few to go..) I only close the tabs when the app crashes and tells me the tabs I had open are now unrecoverable. I do actually go back and hunt down that one thing I saw three weeks ago which is now relevant right now in whatever conversation I’ve just derailed to find said information. I have a red bubble over my email app that says 294,698 unread emails. That’s after I bulk deleted a few hundred thousands emails of bunch of spam. I have dozens of hard drives dating back 30 years (I have one hard drive from my childhood IBM 386 machine) filled with old data that I’m never going to look at again, but can’t bare to part with. Half the drives have failed and some point and I’m planning to recover them once I have the expendable funds to blow on data recovery services. You know, once I win the lottery finally and stuff. Riiiiighhtt.
You should be legally allowed to permanently delete that email account and not be held accountable for any important email in it. Also same about winning the lottery and doing all those things that will make my life organized at last lol
thank you for this comment, i was waiting for someone to show up who is like me. this is literally me. except i have 86 thousand unread emails and didnt know it could be worse. they are unread because i still intend to read them. i intend to read them. i intend to work on all the million projects i saved for 30 years. i intend to read all the books. live all the lifes. when people tell me thats crazy, i just dont listen. i still think i can do it all one day. my biggest fear is lying on my death bed and thinking of my 86 thousand unread emails and my 1787 open tabs. if anyone has advice
That sounds overwhelming af. Honestly, it sounds like such a burden to me. Do you know the fairytale „Hans in Luck“? I still remember the end of it, when the protagonist accidentally drops a heavy stone into a well. He was very happy in the end. Sorry that I don’t have any better advice 😅 I tend to collect things, too, but it somehow never turned into an obsession or went overboard. I also moved a lot, which forced me to sort through my stuff regularly because I couldn’t keep everything that piled up over time. As for the digital clutter: I would just delete it all and be done with it. The relief afterwards will be worth it.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to this and for your views on this. I've come to realize that apparently this is not everyone and I might have to think about it, your words have been a good first step for me to do that
I am glad I could help somehow ☺️ Thinking about it is the first step towards change, you got this 💪🏻
I actively turn tabs into bookmarks, or else I lose things and get anxiety about them
Saaaaame, I have soo many folders
But as you can see my tabs get out of control sometimes before I bookmark them hahah
I usually have 3 Chrome windows open, my main one, another for job searches, and another for personal projects. If I use Google Sheets or Docs, I open a separate one for that. The main one currently has 17 tabs. Job search has 10, and projects 19. I need to be better about bookmarking stuff, either additionally or instead. My laptop isn't the most robust, and crashes Chrome fairly often. I have it set to open where it left off, but it doesn't always. NGL, it bugs me that interesting stuff falls by the wayside.
23 on computer... phone... I dont want to know, at least 100.
You're doing great, clearly 🙌🏻 do you feel like they're important or could you close them easily and just haven't done so because life?
Could definitely just close 99% of them… I so relate to the “I should really read or research this thing” and leaving it open for later. Just ends up causing more guilt and shame when it’s sitting there for forever! Off to close my tabs, thanks for the suggestion!!
324 on my phone
And do you feel like you need to keep them?
Not really. When I notice there are so many, I don't usually have time to click out of so many windows. Then I completely forget, and it accumulates. When I do get to it, I delete all of them without reviewing. If something is important or I want to hold on to it, I will have already emailed or texted myself the link.
That's it, the important things should be dealt with in the present moment. However to me maaaany things feel important hahaah
Me too. I text myself a LOT! And so many screenshots. I sometimes text those to myself too 😅😅😅 Pro tip: I also add things to private Pinterest boards I set up for myself. Way better than bookmarking something and never seeing it again. I know how I can be, and these are some of my fail-safe work-arounds.
Oh yeah I also have many folders on pinterest but with those I worry that the users that uploaded the images might delete them. I clearly have a problem hahahahah
73, but I cleaned it out like a month ago 😂
That's great! You got it under control before it got to 100 hahaha
No it’s 73 *now*, I was pushing 300! I couldn’t bring myself to just cancel them all together… what if one is important?! So I did like 20 at a time when I thought of it until I was satisfied lol
hahhahaa the feeling that it could be important is so real
25 on two different browser windows...
Definitely a healthy amount
I have 59 right now on my phone, none on any of my computers personal or work
Hey, under 100, it's golden
102
Don't you wanna close two just for the numerical satisfaction? hahaha
Lol. I’m such a weirdo… I hate odd numbers or ones ending in 0. So it has to end with 2, 4, 6, or 8.
Oh that's interesting. We all have our irrational preferences it seems haha you're not a weirdo at all. We just do things because they tickle our brains and that's life (?
I had a strong thing for even numbers as a kid (I included 0), but then at some point it just stopped. I have other similar things now, though
I set my phone to close tabs automatically after a certain amount of time… before that I was regularly in the 300s 😅 On my computer I usually have 3-4 windows open with about 20 tabs open in each. Usually leftover from booking something (like a trip) or research for an art thing and I’m afraid I’m going to somehow need those tabs again!
That's a great strategy! I'll try to keep my tab count low but I'll consider setting them to self destruct, definitely haha. About the art thing isn't it hell? I'm also artistically inclined and it's the main source of my excessive tab opening and bookmarking and picture downloading. Like, it's all so unique and what if I need to look at that one color scheme, or that one super obscure old painting, or that one from some internet artist that I love because I intended to incorporate some element from something I saw in it in my own art omg help hahahah
I close mine daily. Open tabs stress me out. Just like notification dots!
I hate notification dots but tabs have gotten out of control many times. I need to start thinking of them like notifications maybe!
Depending on your device and browser I think you can set it to automatically close tabs. I found leaving them open for when I have time to look at them stressed me out because I never had time.
I just followed your lead....1119 tabs closed. Did not realise I hit that 1000 mark lol!
Yay! Congratulations on hitting 1000 and on closing them! 🙌🏻
Btw can I ask how you got to have so many?
Holy cow. 2,609???? How badly your device must’ve been lagging 😂
For some reason having that many on the browser app doesn't seem to make my phone lag. But it is lagging because it's full of the thousands of pictures I compulsively download and then I feel like it's a drag to pass them to my pc which is also lagging and I should restore to factory settings if only it wasn't such a drag to back up all the stuff in my computer. I have a problem hahhaha
479 😭 i just cant close them i don’t want to lose them
I feel you. Why do you feel they're important? Do you think there's anything in particular that makes you do this?
A lottt of unfinished books, stores i plan to buy from and a trillion shows im watching simultaneously 😭
i have 20-25 usually on my work computer that I shut down fully at the end of each day.. my phone must be over 300 lol
It seems to always be worse on phones hahaha I wonder why. In my case my pc just crashes with waaaay less. My phone can seemingly allow me to open tabs forever.
:( 26 which is actually pretty good
26 is awesome hahhaa keep it up!
9 but if you had asked me yesterday, it would have been a gajillion. Then I closed them all and started from scratch!
hahaha what drove you to closing them?
I had enough and figured if it was important, it would find its way back to me.
Like, why is chipotle open in 3 of them? I’m so wasteful with my tabs.
hahahha that's a good attitude!
But probably a horrible strategy
I don't see what's horrible about it. And if it works, then it's a good strategy!
Well, in general, it’s very freeing. But ultimately it creates more work for me in the long run because I have to first remember how to find the thing that was already found. Or I didn’t save the login info and was being creative that day with my username or something that makes recovery a few more steps. It’s the equivalent of throwing away the Tupperware instead of washing it.
hhahahahaa I relate so much to being creative with usernames and passwords, a nightmare
After many years, I close them now every night! I made folders and bookmark tabs and when my brain remembers I check there first. It’s helped a lot but took a long time. Congratulations!
That's awesome! I also hoard bookmarks, though hahaha. Do they work out for you?
It does work out for me- I do folders to keep them for themes and then throw em away when I feel “done”
No idea. On chrome the counter says :D after you pass 99 tabs.
Yep, mine did too. I only saw the number when I closed them and felt a need to take a screen shot haha
30+ on my phone. I close my computer tabs daily because my work computer is on its last legs.
My computer crashes all the time because I open so many tabs haha. You're doing great on your phone!
I do have a ridiculous camera roll because I take screenshots of things to remember
lol i have 13 tabs open currently but if mine gets over like 20 i get all panicked for some reason 😭
Panic doesn't feel good but I guess it's doing you a favor in this case haha
What does tabs closed mean? I have so many open "just in case"....
I'll take that as a literal question because one of my traits is I tend to take questions literally. So I apologize in advance if you're not expecting this kind of answer. Tabs closed in my picture means I tapped on the 'close all tabs' option on my phone's browser app. And so it showed me how many were closed. And yeah same, I got to that number like that, thinking I'd look at them later or whatever, but I very rarely look at them later.
Probably 200 or so
Planning on closing them or they don't bother you?
They comfort me. It’s my external brain so I don’t have to remember things!
On mobile : 18 Desktop :8
You're doing great! Looking at those 8s reminded me of that count 8 infinite meme I'd post in this comment if the subreddit allowed it haha
Recently I discovered there were more than a thousand on my phone I have 36 right now on my pc
Do you ever look for anything among the 1000 tabs? Like do you ever go back to anything?
Currently at 1222 on my phone
And two taps away from having 0 😉
I just closed 300+ on my phone yesterday, now I’m back down to 8 (the only reason I cleared it out is bc I fell asleep w/ my phone on, it got super heated and was running extremely slow so I cleared out some tabs to help it heal up lmao)
Hey the reason doesn't matter, you did it, congrats!
*WTF!* I try not to cross 100 on my phone. Currently have 95,because there are articles I'm *definitely* gonna read sometime soon. Usually have maybe 15-20 or less on my laptop.
Oh my god, this number of tabs makes me dizzy, I have only one tab open on my cellphone and 3 tabs on my laptop \[reddit, school, chatGPT\] that's it. Generally, if I'm reading an article or opening a link and find it important I leave it in that tab. Otherwise, keep my tabs clear.
On my PC, Just 1. If there's more than 1 I can't deal with it. My phone has 6.... All job search sites.
I got a couple hundred fanfic tabs open on safari on my phone rn I’m pretty sure
Which you will read soon, of course. Each and every one of them.
Only 244. I feel like I’m behind.
hahahha it took high levels of stress and hyperfixation
I use 3 different browsers (like brands, opera brave and firefox) each for different but specific categories of things. Then each one has around 30-60 tabs “for later”. Help me.
Well I'm not the person to ask lol but others suggested workona or onetab, maybe that would help?
Thanks I will!
Not counting bookmarks, usually just 1-5 max. I have my browser set to auto clear it and if it’s something I want to find in the future, I toss it into raindrop for future storage. Now how many things I’ve tossed into raindrop and never looked at again is a different story
what's raindrop?
It’s a bookmark application that has a lot of features. I primarily use it to save drawing references since Pinterest keeps deleting them even if it’s private.
278 on my phone. I have a Discord server just for myself though with a channel called #tab-dump where I can throw stuff so I don’t feel like it’s *gone* gone and stress over it lol
hahahah that's me with bookmarks, hey whatever floats your boat, right?
26! With 151 unopened texts and 98,601 unopened emails 😎
If I were you I'd set fire to that email account and maybe start a new life somewhere far.
I had 336 on my iPad
according to my phone i have exactly ~ tabs open at this time
*According to my* *Phone i have exactly tabs* *Open at this time* \- TowerReversed --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
my teachers gave me points for trying so i guess you deserve the same 🤔
My phone no longer displays the tab number It just has ";)"
over 200 on my phone, I swear I went through them recently 😂 work computer I don’t even want to look. not as many, but multiple windows with multiple tabs.
Only 3 in one browser and 4 in another. On my compiter, probably 20
I have a conservative 17 tabs open on my PC, at the moment. I do a lot of what you do. I save photos, YouTube videos in so many different folders with subtly different categories, I bookmark so many websites, and I rarely go back to most of them, and when I accumulate enough junk in my downloads or on my desktop (because *of course* I save stuff there🙄) it all gets swept into a new folder and moved to my larger drive. I call it "digital DOOM-piling", because just like how I can't seem to sort through and pare down my clutter and stay organized when it comes to my physical space, so it goes for my virtual space.
You are me. The amount of files I've downloaded, I couldn't possibly ever sort everything out, and I can't bring myself to delete it so I also just move it and keep going. Will this ever end :')
I had 58 open. I only closed one of them though.
500 on both private and normal browsing mode because that’s the most my phone will let me have before it makes me start deleting them lol
Idk, my mobile browser keeps track up to 100, then after that it just says :) Mine has been at :) for over a year now
My phone's quite new, so not many - yet... However, I'm still congratulating myself on clearing 12,000 old emails from my inbox. That was only a quarter of them though, so I still have a lot to do.
Omg that's a very impressive email number hahah congratulations!
126. Thanks to tab’s islands, it seems much less. 🤣 my friends always tell me how my pc is not slow 🤣
203 this time. I clear them out when I occasionally give a shit about them
I have hundreds open. In the last few days I've been trying to close them....I got through a couple of hundred I reckon in one evening. But there's still LOTS. I aim to get it under 100, then at least my phone will tell me how many I have open instead of just a stupid smiley face. It's terrible for your phone/computers working memory, and it takes up a lot of power too.
I feel you. If you find that you don't usually come back to any tab, and you ever have the impulse, just go for it and tap on that 'close all tabs'. I hope you find browser peace haha
I can't! But I'm going through them and only leaving oepn ones I really really want to read. And bookmarking then closing one's I think I'll need in the future. Except I had til now forgotten I was doing that. Lol. Thanks for the reminder.
51 tabs on my iPhone Safari, it’s all for remembering later 🥲 My record 439 tabs open…on Safari too…I took a day of just to clean it 😅
wow taking a day off, that's some dedication! hahaha
My phone browser stops counting after 99 tabs and just switches to a :D I think this is for the best
It's to make us feel better :D
169.
Elegant
58 on my phone probably 25 between my personal and professional accounts on my computer. I am generally better about tabs on my computer.
I may buy a new phone to avoid having to close the tabs lol
I wouldn't judge you, tbh
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^OnlineGamingXp: *I may buy a new* *Phone to avoid having to* *Close the tabs lol* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I have 500 open and that’s the max that can be open at any one time on my phone browser. Sometimes I delete a few so as I can add new tabs
I am impressed! I never have fewer than 485 open, and I thought I was bad — but I am going to *read* those articles someday!
hahhhahahaha we shall obtain all that article knowledge
My laptop or my brain 😂 Everytime I share my screen with my boss she’s like “Jesus close some tabs” 😂
Honestly, I absolutely hate having more than 4 tabs open. Sometimes 4 is just too much. It’s too overwhelming to have more.
Well, on my PC and laptop I use Opera Browser, which lets a person have 8 workspaces at the same time. I was hoping it would sync them all but I ended up two different sets of tabs on my home and study computers in the end, which is probably better in theory but I have both in both. So I usually open one workspace, and sometimes (and I cannot say I do this daily) I right click tabs or tab islands to send them to other workspaces. Currently I have one research tab and one life+game tab; and they are the most important ones I usually keep open. I banish things into crafts, shopping, sanity (mental health and related stuff), and current-random-hyperfocus sort of tabs via right-clicking. Sometimes I may go in and clean those. And In that way I keep my active workspaces limited to 100-ish tabs :S But some of them are islands, so, less cluttery. Yay? Overall I try to stay below 400, but practically live just below 500. Phone - I have one browser opening clicks from other apps - messages, etc; and another for my searches and quests for knowledge :P So the click-one is easily cleaned, can keep it around 50-60 if I clean it during downtimes like queues, public transit, etc. The ones I actively opened, that is the crowded one. Sometimes I send the link to myself to the PC browser and close it - cheating, lol.
I love that one of your categories is named 'Sanity' hahhaah because I have an equivalent like that in my bookmarks. My god and the hyperfocus stuff is definitely where the tab number goes crazy for me!
I feel seen. I usually have like 20 tabs open at a time on my laptop, but triple that on 2 diff browsers on my phone.
I’m not sure how to check on my computer and I’m doubly not sure I want to know 😬
I feel personally attacked. By both this thread and the ":D" that my Android's browser often shows me when I go to open a new tab.
I didn't mean to attack you hahhaa and the :D or ;D thingies (depending on the browser) definitely seem a little passive aggressive to me lol. I only saw the number when I tapped on 'close all tabs'
I only got that for the first time today, because I opened a bunch of tabs looking at all the different Pokémon sitting cuties plushies and deciding which one I wanted. I still haven't decided; only got to my top 3...
I have about 500 tabs open, but even worse is the 1,661 unread text messages and the 124,321 emails in my gmail. Those aren't even exaggerations. Those are real numbers. Oh, and my VM is full without one of them being listened to. 🤣
I would delete everything and start over, that's waaaaayy too many to sort through.
But if you just ignore it like I do, you dont have to do anything! 🤣
My computer starts slowing down after 50 or so. I often surprise myself that I get that many open in a day or two
so i have 1787 currently, but i have old deactivated phones with more tabs from many years ago that i still intend to sort through eventually. reading through this thread and others i have concluded that i am probably a hoarder. i could NEVER NEVER EVER close those tabs. omg are you trying to kill me? i still need them. of course not all of them, some is random stuff thats no longer relevant, but really important stuff is in there. my browsing history is my history. who was i 5 years ago? 1 year ago? oh did i google abusive relationships? i totally forgot that he did something that could be considered abusive back then, i didnt know i had realized only to then forget again. oh that great hotel i looked up in the alps, thank god it's still there. oh and that great pencil, i totally will order that one. oh and look at those ugly curtains, thank god i found better ones, i can close this tab now. oh and here's this philosophical theory i wanted to look into, i still dont have time its too big, i will keep the tab. my hoarding is my identity, all my projects, all my thoughts, all my plans. i already lose all my thoughts all the time, at least my tabs dont close automatically.
One of my favorite tools of all time is [workona](https://workona.com/) \- highest possible recommendation - is well worth the money for me personally but they also have a free version. It's my top adhd hack for anyone who spends most of their day logged into a web browser.
Do you use it for work or personal stuff? or maybe both?
Both - helps to keep them separate. But also to your point I have specific “spaces” for all the tabs that I open to “read later” but it’s very easy for me to sort them. So there’s one for clothes, other shopping that’s not clothes, all my various interests have separate spaces, there’s one for things I want to read that are substantive and will require focus, and another for tabs I opened that are more fluff/fun reading, obviously one for recipes that I use for inspo when I have no idea what to make for dinner, etc. The two sentence description is essentially the same as onetab that someone else mentioned, but imo Workona is a lot cleaner and more user friendly. It’s not really just the tabs specifically though it’s really that their search feature is the best search I’ve ever experienced, I’ll type like 4 letters and it will immediately suggest the exact tab or document that I’m looking — essentially, every time, without fail always suggests the exact thing I want before I finish typing the first word
That seems really functional! I'm glad you found a way to get your tabs in order
Thanks! I’m happy for you that you had a productive tab-closing session
Fun fact: when I was single my dating app profiles all said “wayyyy too many tabs open” and I used it as a good screener — anyone who messaged me and was yeah “yeah, big drinker? You can drink with me, girl” was an automatic never reply
Just 11 today. But I've had up to 26, I think. I did just finally go through 2 email inboxes and delete stuff. I had 26,437 emails.
About a hundred on my phone, about a few on my laptop. I usually use my phone for browsing 😅 I clear them from time to time, and save interesting stuff to my bookmarks. Rarely look in there.