General Computing
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Updated Tue, 19 Jul 2022 14:39:44 GMT

How to increase the Minimum Tab Width in Chrome/Chromium/Brave


In Firefox/IE (and probably others) there's a Minimum Tab Width.

This is useful when you have a lot of open tabs. They shrink only down to the minimum width but not more.

Firefox - 12+ Tabs

What is the Minimum Tab Width in Chrome/Chromium/Brave ?

Brave - 61 Tabs

How can one increase that ?

This example is about Brave, but a solution for Chrome/Chromium is welcomed.

Background: I routinely use lots (by Chrome's definition) of tabs in a single window on a small 10" touch tablet. I usually have lots of other non-browser windows open at the same time.

Update 1: Found the answers to the first question.

  • At 150% Windows Scaling it's 22.5 pixels per tab:

Brave - 64 Tabs

  • At 100% Windows Scaling it's 13.75 pixels per tab:

Brave - 114 Tabs

After the tabs reach their minimum size, no mechanism besides Ctrl+Tab exists to reach the hidden tabs on the right-hand side.

Solution

In Brave address bar, enter :

brave://flags/

Next, find Tab Scrolling among the available flags and enable it : you can choose from several options (tabs shrink to pinned tab width, tabs shrink to a medium width, tabs shrink to a large width, tabs do not shrink). Then you just have to restart your browser to see the change take effect.

I will not be surprised if this procedure can be reproduced in all chrome type browsers.

Comments (1)

  • +1 – Thanks. It works in Brave and Chrome (here's a blog entry about it). It doesn't work in Edge (even with this workaround). It seems to interfere with the Vertical Tab feature described in my answer. — May 01, 2021 at 13:44  

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