How to easily see your open Chrome tabs on other computers

Look, I’m not here to judge. Okay, well technically as a professional blogger, about 90% of my job is judging. But I’m not here to judge you and the sick little way you keep so many tabs open at once. [Editor’s note: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ] 

No, I’m not a tab hoarder. I can stop any time. Yeah, sure I can.

Rather, I’m here today to tell you about a cool trick that will allow you to easily access all your open Chrome tabs from whatever machine you happen to be on at the time.

Also: How to take a full-page screenshot in Google Chrome

If I were to subject myself to a moment of self-examination, I’d have to admit I like to collect YouTube videos in tabs. I look at the videos YouTube presents to me each day, and then open a bunch of them in new tabs to watch later.

Because I’m being brutally honest with myself (and with you), another admission is in order. I tend to do this while on my work computer, often when I’m supposed to be writing. When whatever I’m working on becomes just too much, I take a five minute YouTube browsing break and collect more videos in tabs.

Like I said, I can quit at any time. It’s certainly not that I pay extra to be able to watch YouTube videos without ads, or that I tweak my history so YouTube only recommends subjects I want to see. No, I’m not p0wn3d by YouTube.

Also: How to tweak YouTube so it only recommends videos you want to watch

I like to watch those videos later on, or in the morning when I’m waking up. I have a Mac mini connected to the big screen TCL Roku TV in the family room. I was initially frustrated, because the open tabs with all the great videos I’d chosen were on my work computer, but I wanted to watch them on the TV computer.

But as Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm says, “Life finds a way.” And I found a way.

Also: How to connect your laptop to a TV quickly and easily

There are three steps to this really neat solution:

1. Go to your main Chrome History page. That’s History under the hamburger (three bar menu) and then choose History from the top of the submenu.
2. Click on Tabs from other devices. This is a special page under history, located at chrome://history/syncedTabs, that contains all your open tabs on other machines.
3. Then, bookmark that page and put it on your bookmarks toolbar, for each access.

As you can see, I created a bookmark called Open Tabs. Whenever I click it, I can see all the tabs from my other machines. My main work machine is Eagle, and I can easily click on any of those open videos and watch them on the big screen with a cup of coffee and a nice hot bowl of oatmeal and fruit.

Also: Too many Google Chrome tabs open? Here’s how to take back control

One caveat: all your Chrome instances need to be logged into, and you have to have sync turned on. But if you do that, you can share tabs any time you want. I can’t wait until tomorrow morning, because I’m definitely watching that video on cardboard.

Hey, I don’t judge you. Don’t judge me. ‘Kay? K.

So what about you? Are you a tab hoarder? Let us know what about your Chrome habits in the comments below.

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.