How to search your open tabs in Chrome on a Mac

Chrome has two built-in ways to find a tab you already have open, and both are there without an extension. Below is how each works on a Mac, checked in Chrome 155 on macOS 26 and against Chrome's own help pages, including the question its help doesn't answer: which windows a search covers.

Tab search

1. Open tab search

   Click the Tab Search button in the tab strip, press ⇧⌘A, or choose Tab › Search Tabs… in the menu bar. If you show your tabs vertically, the button is in the vertical tab strip.

2. Type what you remember

   Enter a few words from the site or page you want. The list of open tabs narrows to the ones that match.

3. Pick the tab

   Select it, and Chrome switches to it. To close a tab without going to it, select the Close button at the right of its row.

The steps are from Chrome Help's page on managing tabs, which gives ⇧⌘A as the shortcut on a Mac. Chrome 155 shows the same shortcut next to Search Tabs… in its Tab menu.

When you know roughly where a tab is, the number keys or stepping through tabs can be quicker than searching. Every tab key, for Chrome and for Safari, Finder and Terminal, is in keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs on a Mac.

Search tabs from the address bar

1. Type @tabs

   Click the address bar, or press ⌘L, and type @tabs.

2. Press Space or Tab

   The address bar switches to searching your tabs. You can also select Search tabs in the suggestions.

3. Type and pick

   Enter keywords for the tab you want, then select it from the list.

This is Chrome Help's second method, and the handier one when your hands are already on the address bar. It's also a good habit before you open a site you may already have open: searching your tabs first saves a duplicate.

Does it search other windows?

Yes. Chrome's help pages don't say, so we tested tab search in Chrome 155: with tabs open in two windows, one search listed the tabs of both windows together. A tab open in a separate browsing session, the kind an Incognito window uses, didn't appear.

If you use several Chrome profiles and a tab you know is open doesn't show up, open tab search from a window of the profile it's in. And if you move between Chrome windows a lot, naming them helps you tell them apart: right-click the empty space next to the New Tab button and choose Name window (Chrome Help).

The button is missing

Tab Search is on by default and pinned to the tab strip, but it can be unpinned, and then the button disappears. To bring it back:

1. Open Chrome's settings

   Click the More menu at the top right of the window, then Settings.

2. Turn the button on

   Click Appearance, then turn on Show tab search button.

You don't need the button to use the feature: ⇧⌘A and Tab › Search Tabs… work either way. To take the button off again, right-click it and choose Unpin. These steps are in the same Chrome Help page.

With Flick

Chrome's tab search covers one browser and one profile. Flick, with a license, searches tabs in Google Chrome, Google Chrome Beta, Brave, Microsoft Edge and Safari (Safari's while Include private windows is on) from the same place you switch windows: hold ⌥, tap Tab and type. Each matching tab gets a row of its own, with the browser's icon, the tab's title and its site. Let go, and Flick switches to that tab and brings its window forward, even when it's on another Desktop.

Every word you type has to match the tab's title, its address or the browser's name, so “chrome github” finds the GitHub tabs in Chrome. Chrome's switch in Flick's Settings › Browser Tabs starts off; turn it on and macOS asks once whether Flick may control Chrome. Flick reads only each tab's title and address, keeps them in memory, and leaves Incognito windows out unless you turn on Include private windows. The free version lists your 5 most recent windows, Chrome's included, but not their tabs.

See how Flick searches browser tabs, or read how Flick works with Chrome.