If your browser right now looks like a messy collection of forgotten articles, half-finished projects, and a dozen "I'll get back to this later" pages, trust me, you're in good company. I used to be the same. My tab bar was a visual manifestation of stress, and my poor computer's RAM was constantly on the verge of collapse.
I went through every supposed fix out there. Bookmarks? Just another graveyard. "Read it later" apps? I never actually did. Then I stumbled upon Toby, a tab management tool that quietly flipped my whole browsing routine on its head. It's available as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, with companion mobile apps for both Android and iOS, so you can keep your browser tabs organized wherever you are.
Toby
- OS
- Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Android & iOS
- Price model
- Free (Pro plan available)
Understanding the Toby extension
Meet the extension that Marie Kondo's your tabs
The moment you install Toby, your new tab page becomes command central. Instead of Chrome's plain default view or that lonely search bar you barely touch, you're greeted with a visual workspace where all your saved tabs live neatly in collections.
Toby walks you through setting up your first workspace. You can tweak the colors, pick from themes like pink, blue, or purple (even some seasonal ones), upload a logo, and invite teammates if you're working on shared projects. It's not overwhelming, and within minutes, you're ready to start sorting out your tab chaos.
So, here comes Spaces, the feature that takes Toby's organization to the next level. These act like drawers for your collections. You'll start with defaults such as "My Collections," "Personal," "Hobbies," "Entertainment," "Travel," and "Recipes," but you can make your own too. Inside each space, you can build multiple collections. For example, in a "Work" space, you might have one collection for clients, another for ongoing projects, and another for research. Each collection can hold plenty of tabs, though the free version limits you to sixty saved in total.
Toby also adds a few clever extras. There's "To / Links," a custom shortcut system that lets you type "to/" followed by a keyword in your browser's address bar to jump to any page fast. So, in practice, you can type "to/email" to open Gmail or "to/docs" to head straight to your Google Drive folder. These shortcuts save seconds that add up to hours over time, and they are quite efficient once they become muscle memory.
And then there's "Next," which functions as a built-in to-do list for your saved tabs. You can mark certain tabs as priorities, and they appear in a dedicated checklist. It's perfect for revisiting those "read later" articles or research links without cluttering your active workspace.
Saving and opening sessions with one click
"Where did that tab go?" becomes a thing of the past
Alright, I've gone over the interface—how does it actually feel to use? Let's say you're knee-deep in a project with fifteen tabs open, your brain hopping between research papers, notes, and maybe a stray YouTube video or two. It's a lot to manage, but Toby gives you two easy ways to save your progress.
The first is what I'll call the "one-click Save Session." On the right side of your Toby dashboard, you'll see all the tabs you currently have open. Instead of sorting through them manually, you can just hit the "Save Session" button (that's the one marked "1" in the screenshot above). In seconds, Toby gathers them all into a new collection; you give it a name, and those 15 tabs close and are safely stored.
The second method is more hands-on: drag-and-drop. Sometimes you don't want to save everything, just a few key tabs. You can grab the ones you need from the "Open Tabs" list on the right and drop them straight into a collection on the left. When it's time to get back to work, there's no frantic tab hunting through your browser history. Just open a new tab, land on your Toby dashboard, go to your Space, find the right collection, and click the "Open tabs" button (the one marked "2"). In an instant, all your research comes back to life, exactly where you left off, and much like what’s possible when you master Chrome’s built-in tab management tools.
The calm after the browser storm
Toby is one of those extensions that changes the way you browse the web. Unlike bookmarks that vanish into forgotten folders, Toby's visual layout keeps everything right in front of you. Your saved sessions stay visible and easy to reopen whenever you need them.
As I mentioned earlier, the free plan gets you started with a 60-tab limit, which is plenty to see if the setup actually fits your workflow. If you outgrow that, the paid tiers unlock unlimited tabs and a few extra tools. Some Chrome Web Store reviewers have voiced frustration over the newer limits on the free version, but for everyday use, I think 60 saved tabs is more than reasonable. After all, that's 60 tabs safely stored, not the ones you already have opened.