Turn off tab groups?

Description of the issue:

Today I suddenly get this annoying little tab group thing in my top bar and can’t get rid of it. I don’t want this function on and this page linked below says I can turn it off, except there is no such option in my appearance settings. The only option I see is “Only open links in current tab group” but disabling that did nothing.

I can move my tabs left one by one and finally Brave asks if I want to delete the tab group, but this is tedious, it still comes back, and if it’s near the start of the bar and I try to drag a tab, the tab goes into it and I get this weird split screen thing, I don’t even know, all I know is I don’t want it and the little number thing takes up space and I don’t want to accidentally trigger the split screen thing. This thing appears eventually even though I don’t select open new tab in group or whatever anymore. How do I get rid of it?

(No, I cannot update Android. This is the final version for my device.)

Link that says I can turn it off except I have no such option: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402426130573-How-do-I-Enable-Disable-Tab-Groups-on-Android

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. Just by opening new tabs, whether I group them or not, it shows up.

Expected result:

See screencap.

Brave Version( check About Brave):

1.70.117

Mobile Device details

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6, Android 12

Additional Information:

EDIT: UGH it’s adding more!

3 Likes

Same by me, Android 14 on MiPad5 with latest available Brave from Goggle Play store. It´s really annoying, an option to disable would be appreciated.

3 Likes

While trying to move tabs around just now to get rid of the useless thing, my tablet just rebooted–not a browser crash, my entire tablet! And coming back on and finishing the job, it was like the two grouped tabs stuck together while I was moving them again, they overlapped a bit at first…I can’t really explain.

Seriously, now that it’s starting to crash my tablet (a memory issue?), I’d really prefer to turn it off. I read the explanation of tab groups linked above and I don’t even understand it, I’d never use it.

Also, why does autocorrect not work on this forum…? :confused:

1 Like

Yes, same problem on my tablet, too. Am on Android 10, Lenovo Yoga Tab.
It’s not happening on my mobile phone, and that’s even older; there it works like described in Brave help, with visible groups, which I like.
This weird insertion of numbers between tabs and no option to turn this feature off has to be a bug.

2 Likes

Oh thank god it’s not just me. I had this happen this week and thought I did something wrong, but it seems it’s just Brave being stupid. Someone DM us when there’s a solution, I do not like tab grouping and would rather have no tab grouping since they all get jumbled together anyway and it’s not worth it.

2 Likes

***This post was originally under review for awhile, thus why I made a 2nd post, which wasn’t flagged. ***

This is very annoying, so much so, I just registered on here to voice my frustration.

I’m running Brave Mobile (Brave Version 1.70.117, Chromium 129.0.6668.59)

When browsing a webpage and I click (tap) on an image or link that opens a new tab, my current tab, plus the new tab get automatically “grouped.” When I close the newly opened tab, planning to go back to my original tab, my original tab is now in a group by itself. Scrolling through multiple tabs, this single tab group is pointless.


So, everytime a webpage opens up a new page (tab) I have to do this silly drag with my original tab to “ungroup” it from this feature.

Please give us the ability to disable this.

3 Likes

I’m finding this new feature frustrating as well. Signed up just to comment about it.

It is very annoying when clicking on a link or picture that opens a new tab. That new tab now creates a group with the original tab. When I close that new tab, the original tab is now in a group, by itself. It’s pretty pointless for this UI design as it doesn’t have any benefits when scrolling through my open tabs.

Then to remove the original tab from this silly group of 1, I have to do this dragging of the tab in the group toward the bottom to delete the group. Every time a new tab gets opened from the original tab.

Please allow us to disable this “feature” as it just adds more aggravation to the Brave UI.

I’m running Brave Version: 1.70.119

2 Likes

You can stop tab groups appearing by
Settings → Appearance → Open links only in the current tab group. Off.
BUT my problem with this feature is not that tabs open in groups but when I have a group of let’s say 3 tabs and I close 2 of them, that one tab stays still as a part of a group (like in your screenshots above). It’s so annoying!
It started after the last update. Previously, when I closed all tabs beside one from a group, this one card became a big single card. Like it’s view was back from group to normal tab. And it worked good.
Now I was looking if I can restore this option after the update and I didn’t find it. It’s insane.

3 Likes

Same issue. With one page in a group the group will auto ungroup itself. Now it is so annoying to ungroup it manually.

1 Like

Yes! I want to disable stupid tab groups altogether. I don’t have this option anymore btw…

1 Like

Is there any way to officially report this to Brave? Because it’s very annoying to use. My browser looks like this now :woman_facepalming:t2:

1 Like

I hate the group tabs. And it sucks more that its the top option when you long press on a link.

1 Like

Yep, same issue with me on my tablet! Such a pita and those tab group labels just take up valuable horizontal space for nothing, with NO option to turn it off like it says you can in that help page! Who ever thought this was a good idea? Has this been officially reported?

2 Likes

This is an annoying, confusing and unnecessary feature for me, especially on a mobile interface.

It should be a choice to enable or disable depending on user preference. I don’t notice this behaviour on windows/Mac where it feasibly might be useful.

Is the same issue in Chromium?

At least update the docs to reflect the current version. This is an in your face feature.

2 Likes

Same here. It seems there are some posts here dated back to 22 but this just darted in my browser last week. There is no option to turn off tab groups in the appearance group. PLEASE RESPOND! I signed up just so I could reply to this post. SOOOOO ANNOYING. it doesn’t happen on my phone, just my Galaxy tablet.

2 Likes

The most obnoxious thing about this is that the mobile browser doesn’t treat the tab bar as part of the browser, so you literally just can’t see the bottom of the page without needing with the tab groups. This is a giant pain.

1 Like

Replying here just to say “me too” and keep this topic open. Looking for alternatives for desktop and mobile as this is unbearable and not being fixed.

1 Like

This is frustrating and unnecessary, Brave please fix.

1 Like

I too would like to remove the group on last tab automatically

1 Like

I have this same issue… I don’t want the last tab open in a tab group to remain in a tab group, I want it to just be a regular tab.

This is super frustrating and there have been at least two other topics on this. They bit got closed due to lack of replies. One suggested making posts on the project’s GitHub page to let the developers know about interest in changing this behavior, and another was a misunderstanding that the user wanted to close the last tab in the group and the group, not bring the last tab out of the group and put it in a normal tab.

It makes no sense to have a single tab in a tab group. Once there’s only one tab left after closing others in a group, that tab should just turn into a normal tab without the group anymore.