Google has reconsidered its decision over the removal of “Close other tabs “option from Chrome, the company is now reverting the change it made before to tab context menu to add the option back. Expect the option to first to appear in Chrome Canary, then in other channels and eventually in stable version via an update.
UPDATE November 04, 2019: The Close other tabs option is now available and appears in tab context menu of latest Chrome Canary build 80.0.3959.0.
Here is what happened: Chromium team made the long-pending changes to tab context menu recently, the changes are present in Chrome 78 where close other tabs option won’t appear when you right-click on a tab, the “Close other tabs to right” option, however, has been preserved. The decision has been made on the usage data and COT got the ax as it has been used only by 2.20% of Chrome users.
We’ve recently covered there is an extension that allows to close other tabs in Chrome with a shortcut if you install an extension, it seems this no longer needed or still could be useful to few users as the Chromium team is undoing the change now.
It’s rare for Google to reconsider after removing a feature, though this has happened with the Bookmark manager and Renderer Code Integrity feature recently, but we can see users enquiring about missing option in the tab context menu on Reddit and Chrome Help forum, perhaps the feedback could have made to change their decision. You can see the commit change here to notice ” “re-add Close Other Tabs” to tabstrip Context menu. ”
We’ll let you know or provide an update here when Close other tabs option appears in Chrome. [Thanks to Leo].
I too was confused when this happened. For now, I am using the hotkey – Ctrl + Shift + T to reopen closed tabs. It seems really strange that only 2% of users frequently use this feature from the tabs option.
Chrome is suck!
2% of users means 1 out of every 50 users. There are 310 million people who use Chrome as their primary browser, so 6,200,000 people who do use these tab options are being deprived.
WE DID IT!!! They’re bringing it back!!
Andrew Likes this
Google Chrome is becoming more and more PATHETIC every passing release. They are adding stupid redesigns no one wanted and now they are stripping our FEATURES that we LOVE to use. BRING BACK REOPEN CLOSED TAB and CLOSE OTHER TABS feature right away. No one asked you to remove it. You guys do not even consider user experience for most power users . You have to remember a lot of power users use Chrome differently than a handful of Chrome devs and they are absolutely irate over your stupid changes
You can still use the “reopen closed tab” feature. Just click anywhere in the upper side of window where there is no tab opened and you have access to this feature.
I am glad they’re putting it back. This is just as stupid as the time when you couldn’t click the padlock to view an SSL certificate. Form over function is sad.