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Google tests ‘tab strips’ w/ full-size tab previews on Chrome OS [Video]

Google Chrome has undergone a lot of change over the past couple of years, and it seems Google isn’t done yet. In one of the latest updates, Google has added a new “Tab Strips” option to Chrome on the desktop that shows full-size tab previews.

Chrome Story recently highlighted a new UI change coming to Chrome that’s live in the latest Canary channel update. The new UI gives Chrome’s tabs full-size previews that allow a more visual way to see what each tab contains.

Apparently, this is called “Tab Strips” and pops up alongside Google Chrome’s usual tab layout. Notably, Google previously said that an “upcoming update” would add a thumbnail to tabs, but this seems like a different feature entirely.

In order to enable this feature on your machine, you’ll need to update to the latest version of Chrome Canary. Then head to chrome://flags and search for “strip.” From there, you’ll find #webui-tab-strip#new-tabstrip-animation, and #scrollable-tabstrip. All three need to be enabled, at which point you’ll need to relaunch Chrome.

Right now, it seems this feature is only live on Chrome OS, so you’ll need to be using the Canary channel to try it out. On other devices we’re not seeing the “WebUI” flag like on the latest updates, but your results may vary. These changes are apparently coming to Windows, Mac, and Linux, eventually.

Once enabled, an arrow appears next to the “new tab” icon in Chrome that opens up the Tab Strip. This interface takes up a large portion of the display and scrolls once a certain number of tabs have been accumulated. You can see the feature in action below.

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