How to Save Chrome Tab Groups and Restore Them Later

Chrome tab groups are perfect for keeping a project together, until you close the window and they vanish. If you want to save Chrome tab groups and restore them later, exactly as they were, you have two real options: Chrome built-in save and a dedicated extension. This guide covers both, and shows which one actually survives a restart.

Option 1: Save tab groups with Chrome built-in feature

Recent versions of Chrome let you save a group so it lingers on your bookmarks bar.

1. Right-click the colored group name in the tab strip.

2. Choose Save group, or simply close the group, since Chrome 131 and later auto-save it to the bookmarks bar.

3. To restore it later, click the saved group on the bookmarks bar and it reopens.

It works for light use, but it is fragile: saved groups can disappear after a crash or major Chrome update, there are no folders to organize many groups, and it is tied to one browser profile. For detail, see how to save tab groups in Chrome and how to reopen tab groups in Chrome.

Option 2: Save tab groups as Collections with Tabox

Tabox saves your whole window, including every tab group name and color, as a named Collection you can reopen anytime.

1. Install Tabox from the Chrome Web Store and arrange your tabs into groups.

2. Click the Tabox icon and choose Add Collection to save the window.

3. Tabox stores each group name and color alongside the tabs.

How to restore your tab groups later

1. Open Tabox and find the Collection you saved.

2. Click the play button to reopen it in the current window, or toggle Open in new window for a fresh one.

3. Tabox recreates the original tab groups, same names and same colors, not just a flat list of links.

Because Collections are stored independently of Chrome session, they survive restarts, crashes, and updates.

Never lose a group: back up and sync

Export a Collection to a file for safekeeping, or turn on Google Drive sync so your saved groups follow you across devices. See how to back up Chrome tab groups and how to sync browser tabs across devices.

FAQ

Does Chrome remember tab groups after restart?

Sometimes. Chrome may restore grouped tabs if you reopen with session restore, but groups are frequently lost after a crash or update. Saving them as a Tabox Collection is far more reliable.

Can I restore a tab group on another computer?

Yes, with Tabox Google Drive sync, or by exporting the Collection to a file and importing it on the other machine.

Is there a limit to how many tab groups I can save?

With Tabox you can save as many Collections as you like, organized into Folders, for free.