130

Scenario: I hit Ctrl+T to open a new tab, but I don't want it as the right-most tab, I want to slide it a few tabs to the left.

Can I do this using just the keyboard or do I have to use the mouse?

I can't see a shortcut here: Windows keyboard shortcuts - Chrome Help.

Something like Ctrl+Shift+Left would work nicely.

bad_coder
  • 643
slugmandrew
  • 2,498

8 Answers8

91

Ctrl+Shift+PgUp

Ctrl+Shift+PgDn

bad_coder
  • 643
Utkarsh Mittal
  • 1,055
  • Great, it works. For some reason, this is not documented by Google in their help page on Chrome shortcuts at https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/157179?hl=en. – Teemu Leisti May 21 '18 at 17:02
  • 27
    This only works on Linux unfortunately. You need to use the extension linked to in the other answer for Windows and MacOS. – paradroid Jun 11 '18 at 13:36
  • Works on OpenBSD's Chromium port. – Clint Pachl Aug 05 '19 at 05:21
  • Small note that this does not work while viewing a Google Docs spreadsheet. It will instead try to navigate left / right on your current spreadsheet's tabs. – Darren Felton Nov 28 '19 at 00:02
  • worked out of the box on Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS (PopOS) – Life5ign Mar 15 '21 at 18:21
  • 4
    Works on my Windows 10 OS. – Shaida Muhammad Aug 25 '22 at 17:33
  • Works for me in Windows 10 and Chrome Version 112.0.5615.121 (Official Build) (64-bit) – Anomaly Apr 19 '23 at 14:37
  • 2
    Works for me in macOS too, yay! – David Cook Jul 04 '23 at 05:19
  • Checked on macOS Ventura (13.5.1) and the latest version of Chrome (116.0.5845.140) - it works! To use this shortcut with a keyboard that doesn't have dedicated PgUp/PgDown keys (e.g. MacBook Pro, compact keyboards etc), use the Fn button with arrows Up/Down to emulate PgUp/PgDown keys. So the whole combination will be as follows: Ctrl+Shift+Fn+Up/Down. – informatik01 Sep 01 '23 at 22:35
70

Current Solution [2019]

There aren't any built-in, but there are extensions that provides this functionality.

I'm now using this chrome extension (recommended): Rearrange Tabs

You do have to edit the settings by going to chrome://extensions/shortcuts and then changing the values as shown in this screen (if you want to match the Linux shortcuts).

How to customise your shortcuts

Happy days :)

Legacy extension (2015)

This is the original one (not updated since 2015): Keyboard Shortcuts to Reorder Tabs

You need to reload all tabs after installing it or it won't work.

slugmandrew
  • 2,498
  • The extension doesn't work on macOS Sierra though. – Lars Nyström Mar 27 '17 at 16:25
  • 5
    @LarsNyström I just added this: https://github.com/mohnish/rearrange-tabs works nicely on Sierra, and no need to reload your browser – MMachinegun May 08 '17 at 10:57
  • 4
    @MMachinegun Nice, thank you! For new people here, MMachinegun's extension is not the same as the one in slugmandrew's answer. Here's a direct link to MMachinegun's extension in the Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rearrange-tabs/ccnnhhnmpoffieppjjkhdakcoejcpbga – Lars Nyström May 09 '17 at 06:53
  • I've downvoted - not because this answer's bad - just that it's old. As of 2018 there is a better solution https://superuser.com/a/1316201/2581 – Andrew M May 14 '18 at 09:24
  • 3
    Except the ctrl-shift-page-up/down shortcuts seem to still only work on Linux, and the OP mentioned the Windows keyboard shortcuts help page, so that's presumably what they're looking for. – jdunning Jul 25 '18 at 23:29
  • 1
    Default keyboard shortcuts are:
    Move selected tab(s) Left: Mac(Ctrl+Shift+Left) Windows(Shift+Alt+Left)
    Move selected tab(s) Right: Mac(Ctrl+Shift+Right) Windows(Shift+Alt+Right)
    Move selected tab(s) to the Left-most Position: Mac(Ctrl+Shift+Down) Windows(Shift+Alt+Down)
    Move selected tab(s) to the Right-most Position: Mac(Ctrl+Shift+Up) Windows(Shift+Alt+Up)
    The shortcuts can be customized from chrome://extensions/shortcuts     – ChrisB Dec 12 '18 at 02:04
  • @AndrewM But that solution only works in Linux; other users still need this extension. – Franklin Yu Aug 11 '19 at 03:12
  • Seems like this is such a basic ability. Keyboard-first development. – reergymerej Dec 18 '19 at 14:57
  • (on mac) I changed it using: chrome://extensions/shortcuts to: cmd-arrowkey why? because ctrl-alt-arrowkey is what i use to copy the url to the clipboard – mcaleaa May 07 '20 at 12:21
  • This answer should be updated to indicate that Ctrl+Shift+PageUp/PageDown works on Windows 10 + recent versions of Chrome – Anomaly Apr 19 '23 at 14:38
  • @jdunning It also works on Macs (as of September 2023). See my comment here. – informatik01 Sep 01 '23 at 22:40
39

If you don't want to use extensions, you can focus tabs using

  • F6, F6

Now you're in tab-selection mode, and can use the keyboard for a variety of tab-editing tasks.

  • Move cursor: Left or Right
  • Move tabs: Ctrl+Left or Ctrl+Right
  • Move to the beginning or end: Ctrl+Shift+Left or Ctrl+Shift+Right
  • Enter focuses the page.

This also works very nicely with tab groups:

  • Create new groups by pressing Menu,Down,Right,Enter,Name of group,Enter
  • You can move tabs into groups with Ctrl+Arrow
  • Expand or fold group by moving the cursor to the group label and press Enter
  • Change group settings by pressing Menu

I currently don't know of a way to select multiple tabs.

If you are remapping these shortcuts using AutoHotKey or macros, use Ctrl+L, Shift+F6 to focus tabs, and Ctrl+L, F6 to focus the page. These shortcuts work from anywhere, regardless of what is currently focused.

bad_coder
  • 643
Zikoat
  • 527
  • 11
    Great, Windows solution without need for extensions. I vote to make this the accepted answer. – Amio.io Dec 22 '20 at 07:51
  • this is the only correct answer here – Mithaldu Jan 31 '21 at 14:52
  • 1
    Nice! I didn't know you get a different focus when you press F6 twice. – Redsandro Feb 21 '21 at 00:16
  • Wow! Thank you. – Mark C Apr 20 '21 at 01:39
  • Works on Linux as well ! – Umer Abbas Jun 28 '21 at 04:52
  • Excellent! Note, when I tried it (on Windows), hitting Enter did not focus on the page. I had to hit F6 again, which worked. (unless you have something in the status bar at the bottom, in which case just hit F6 one more time) – KevinVictor Dec 16 '21 at 16:57
  • Okay- if you switch to another tab, hitting enter does focus. But if you just move the current tab to another position (e.g. left or right), you have to hit F6. – KevinVictor Dec 16 '21 at 17:00
  • Sadly overflown tabs are inaccessible with this method, it only works on tabs visible in the tab-bar. – LJ_1102 Nov 08 '23 at 02:31
  • @LJ_1102 A workaround is to either move some tabs into a group so the overflown tabs get visible, or to create a new window, although it sounds like you might need a tab organising extension such as https://www.one-tab.com/ – Zikoat Nov 09 '23 at 14:52
6

No need to dedicate a whole extension just for this. The AutoControl shortcut manager for Chrome can do this easily.

For example, you can use Win+Left and Win+Right to move a tab to the left and right, as shown in the following screenshot:
enter image description here
You could also use the scroll wheel instead of the arrow keys, as I do. You have lots of possibilities.

Mercalli
  • 209
  • GREAT recommendation to eliminate one of the many quirks that make Chrome much inferior to Waterfox (IMHO). However, I still need to find why Shift is stolen from the whole Chrome system, if used with the shortcut. :-( – Charles Roberto Canato Apr 12 '19 at 21:09
  • 1
    @CharlesRobertoCanato, What do you mean by "stolen"? You mean you found a bug? – Mercalli Apr 12 '19 at 21:27
  • Sorry for my poor English, @Mercalli. Yeah, there was some situation after I built my move tabs shortcut where Shift was not being recognized by any Chrome tab or window. However, I could not reproduce it. I deleted the shortcut and built it again, and all has worked as expected. Anyway, I remembered that Vimium also offers this specific feature, so for now I went back to it. But it was a great tip, really. – Charles Roberto Canato Apr 15 '19 at 05:29
  • 6
    @CharlesRobertoCanato, I tried vimium as well but it had too many restrictions. It doesn't work on extension tabs or chrome:// tabs or error pages or Web Store tabs and so and so on. It also can't customize existing shortcuts. It's not a reliable shortcut extension in general. AutoControl doesn't have any of those problems. – Mercalli Apr 18 '19 at 22:30
  • Oh, I apologize I wasn't very clear - my fault, sorry @Mercalli - I went a bit off-topic. AutoControl felt like a great extension for customizing the browser itself, and does it very nicely, the action creation is great. Vimium is not restricted: it's great on customizing the browsing (where AutoControl is only reasonable), but that's just my use case (very rarely I need anything from chrome or store pages). However, AutoControl is still a great answer to the OP. – Charles Roberto Canato Apr 20 '19 at 16:53
6

With Vimium C extension you can move tabs to left or right using the << (Shift + ,,) or >> (Shift + ..) keyboard shortcuts.

AXO
  • 996
0

This extension does exactly that. Move tabs around with

CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT & CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT

No frills.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/move-tab/lioifkjmgeijapfaccompfkdhbodcpkd/related

Just one problem CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT is used for text selection : ) in an input box or text area.

Geza Turi
  • 1
0

In addition to @Zikoat's answer, on a Mac, you can focus tabs by pressing Cmd+opt+Up/Down keys (F6 couldn't do if for me).

  • Move tab to the beginning or the end: Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right

Ps: I don't have enough reputation to comment on the said answer, that's why I had to add an answer.

Jahchap
  • 1
0

Yet another helpfull Chrome extension: Shortkeys (Custom Keyboard Shortcuts)

superqwerty
  • 131