Chrome tab sync is very confusing
December 29, 2016 10:49 AM Subscribe
Is there a reliable way to get Google Chrome on a second computer to open all the tabs that were open on the first computer?
My partner has two different Windows PCs. He uses one for awhile, then puts it to sleep, then uses another machine. When he switches to Chrome on the second machine he'd like it to start by opening all the 40+ tabs that were open when he finished using the first machine. Is this possible?
I think this is supposed to be possible. Google has Chrome synchronization if you log in to Chrome itself. I've seen various articles claiming it is possible. But every time we've tried to set it up it hasn't worked. Other tabs don't open at all, or only a few do, or something else confusing happened.
Asking this question is ironic for me; I'm a software engineer who used to work at Google. A few years back I would have been the one to implement a feature like tab sync. But now I can't even figure out how to use what Chrome has built. I feel like I'm misunderstanding the sync model. Either that or the feature just doesn't work, or maybe the settings on one of my partner's machines is wrong and I haven't noticed it?
I need a good article explaining in bulletproof terms how to get sync working. That, and/or a Chrome extension to help with it. This real-time sync extension is linked in a lot of places, but we don't really need real time two-way sync between two machines, just one machine at a time.
My partner has two different Windows PCs. He uses one for awhile, then puts it to sleep, then uses another machine. When he switches to Chrome on the second machine he'd like it to start by opening all the 40+ tabs that were open when he finished using the first machine. Is this possible?
I think this is supposed to be possible. Google has Chrome synchronization if you log in to Chrome itself. I've seen various articles claiming it is possible. But every time we've tried to set it up it hasn't worked. Other tabs don't open at all, or only a few do, or something else confusing happened.
Asking this question is ironic for me; I'm a software engineer who used to work at Google. A few years back I would have been the one to implement a feature like tab sync. But now I can't even figure out how to use what Chrome has built. I feel like I'm misunderstanding the sync model. Either that or the feature just doesn't work, or maybe the settings on one of my partner's machines is wrong and I haven't noticed it?
I need a good article explaining in bulletproof terms how to get sync working. That, and/or a Chrome extension to help with it. This real-time sync extension is linked in a lot of places, but we don't really need real time two-way sync between two machines, just one machine at a time.
This has been bugging me over the last few hours now that I know I'm not alone in this confusion, so I tried to dig into this more.
I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what "Tab Sync" is, and based on the documentation, it looks like this feature is really more of a "(Individual Tab) History Sync" feature. Best I can tell, this feature is not supposed to manage your session of open tabs (which Firefox sync did/does), but instead allow you to easily pull up an individual tab's instance from another device.
There's a marketing video from 2012 that illustrates the feature. Note that a no point do tabs automagically open up on another device, but instead, in 2012, there was a "Other Devices" menu that let you pull up a tab.
See also this long and drawn out example. His phone's tab didn't automatically open on the PC, but when he selected the phone's tab from the device menu, he had the tab's full history.
This would explain why you have to go through the relatively long process in my previous answer. This feature isn't meant to be a way to sync your windowing environment, but is instead, per your link, a way to
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:23 PM on December 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what "Tab Sync" is, and based on the documentation, it looks like this feature is really more of a "(Individual Tab) History Sync" feature. Best I can tell, this feature is not supposed to manage your session of open tabs (which Firefox sync did/does), but instead allow you to easily pull up an individual tab's instance from another device.
There's a marketing video from 2012 that illustrates the feature. Note that a no point do tabs automagically open up on another device, but instead, in 2012, there was a "Other Devices" menu that let you pull up a tab.
See also this long and drawn out example. His phone's tab didn't automatically open on the PC, but when he selected the phone's tab from the device menu, he had the tab's full history.
This would explain why you have to go through the relatively long process in my previous answer. This feature isn't meant to be a way to sync your windowing environment, but is instead, per your link, a way to
"It's easy enough to continue working with a single specific tab via Chrome's menu > History menu > Device subsection, but pulling up all the tabs from another device is rather buried because it's not meant for that."
- Continue working with tabs from your computer to your phone
- Find a page you were looking at on your phone and see it on your computer
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:23 PM on December 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for diving deep for me, NSAID. So maybe Chrome can't do this thing I want? Like you I remember this being so easy in Firefox and just assumed Chrome had cloned it.
I wonder if there's an extension that can do it. I found this old article on the topic but the extensions it talks about all haven't been updated in a year+. Maybe i need to try that real-time sync extension, from a brief review it sounds like it will do want. And it works even if one of the browser computers is offline (ie: not just real-time). The "related extensions" page also has links to several other "tab manager" extensions. Most of them are more about building sets of tabs explicitly, but maybe one of them will just implicitly track whatever you have open for you.
posted by Nelson at 3:39 PM on December 29, 2016
I wonder if there's an extension that can do it. I found this old article on the topic but the extensions it talks about all haven't been updated in a year+. Maybe i need to try that real-time sync extension, from a brief review it sounds like it will do want. And it works even if one of the browser computers is offline (ie: not just real-time). The "related extensions" page also has links to several other "tab manager" extensions. Most of them are more about building sets of tabs explicitly, but maybe one of them will just implicitly track whatever you have open for you.
posted by Nelson at 3:39 PM on December 29, 2016
When I go to History and other tabs there's a small icon on the top right that allows me to "open all" tabs from another computer. It's not exactly what you want since the other computer won't keep up but it should mostly do the trick. If you really want to mimic the syncing feature maybe use computer A open a bunch of tabs. Then open computer B new window open all tabs from A, close some open some new ones. Then when you go back to A just close everything and you should be able to just click open all from B. Haven't tried this out but my understanding is that this will work.
Note: This all assumes that you're logged into your google chrome account on both computers. I also should read more carefully as I just realized I just retyped out the first answer :(
posted by aaabbbccc at 11:09 PM on December 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Note: This all assumes that you're logged into your google chrome account on both computers. I also should read more carefully as I just realized I just retyped out the first answer :(
posted by aaabbbccc at 11:09 PM on December 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
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The best I've ever been able to get is (and it looks like the flow slightly changed recently) to go to History, click "Tabs From Other Devices", and then you'll view a list of other computers/phones/toaster ovens/etc with their respective tabs. From there, you can click the 3 stacked dots menu button and pick "Open All".
It's roundabout, but at least this way is reliable.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:21 AM on December 29, 2016 [2 favorites]