[Tip] Restore Old Tab Switcher Screen UI in Chrome on Android

After upgrading to new version of Chrome app in one of my Google Android smartphones, I noticed that the default tab switcher page UI (also known as tab organizer, tab selector or tab view screen) has been changed. When I pressed New Tab button present on Chrome toolbar (near 3-dots menu), Chrome displayed all running tabs in a new redesigned layout as shown in following screenshot:

You can see in above screenshot, all tabs are showing side-by-side in a new grid layout. Looks clean and organized in my opinion.

In older versions of Chrome app, when we pressed the New Tab button, Chrome used to show classic tab switcher screen as shown in following screenshot:

All running tabs used to show in a Card layout where web page titles and thumbnail previews were shown in each tab overlapping previous tab.

If you also received the new grid layout in Chrome tab switcher screen and you want to disable the new layout and restore previous tab switcher screen in Chrome, this tutorial will help you.

Actually the new grid layout is not new. If you remember, last year we told you how to activate and enable this new grid layout in Chrome app when it was under development and testing phase and was not available by default to Chrome users. It was a hidden secret feature at that time. Check out following tutorial for details:

[Tip] Activate Hidden Secret Tab Switcher UIs in Chrome on Android

Now it seems Chrome team has started rolling out the new grid layout for tab switcher screen for Chrome users.

If you are not comfortable with new tab switcher UI and want to get rid of it, fortunately, the same preference/flag to enable new grid layout for tab switcher UI is still present and can be used to disable the new grid layout and bring back old classic card layout for tab switcher screen.

Following steps will help you in restoring old tab switcher screen UI in Chrome app on Android mobile phones:

PS: If you haven’t received the new grid layout for tab switcher, the same steps can be used to activate and enable new grid layout right now.

1. Open Chrome app and type chrome://flags in address bar and tap on Go. It’ll open Chrome Experiments page where you can turn on/off several features.

2. Now type tab grid in Search flags box and it’ll show following result:

3. Tap on the “Default” drop-down box and select “Disabled” option from the list.

4. Chrome will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Relaunch Now” button to relaunch Google Chrome.

IMPORTANT NOTE 1: Even if we have restarted Chrome app, you’ll not get the old classic tab switcher activated because Chrome app was not closed completely by Android. We’ll need to completely close Chrome app using Recent apps button on our mobile phone and close all running apps. Now relaunch Chrome app and you’ll see changes activated.

IMPORTANT NOTE 2: There is an easier way to apply changes. You can use Chrome://restart command in address bar to completely restart Google Chrome and apply changes.

5. Now open 2 or more tabs in Chrome app and you’ll get the old classic tab switcher screen back in Chrome.

PS: To activate and enable new grid layout for tab switcher screen, set the above mentioned preferences to Enabled.

TIP: You can also experiment with other available values. “Tab Grid Layout” preference provides multiple values to select as mentioned below:

• Default
• Enabled
• Enabled New Tab Variation
• Enabled New Tab Tile
• Enabled Tall NTV
• Enabled Search term chip
• Enabled Price alerts
• Disabled

You can try to select each value one by one and check the output result.

NOTE: If you also want to disable new Tab Groups feature (including bottom tab toolbar) in Chrome on Android, following tutorial will help you:

[Tip] Disable Tab Grouping and New Tab Switcher in Chrome on Android

Also Check:

[Tip] Enable Bottom Tab Switcher Toolbar in Chrome on Android

[Fix] Google Chrome Tab Switcher UI Changed to Basic Horizontal List on Android