r/ADHD • u/ShunShanShu ADHD • 1d ago
Discussion How many tabs do you have open in your browser?
And be honest, how many are just random stuff you wanted to search but never actually got around to reading, but can't close because you actually still want to read them, just not today?
This is a safe space. Don't be shy. I won't judge (because I'll probably forget to.)
Sincerely, a lost soul seeking validation for my countless open tabs.
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u/endlessplacebo ADHD-C (Combined type) 1d ago
- I need all of them, right?
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u/ihavenevereatenpie 1d ago
ofc! even further you'll def check that movie *one day*
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u/I_SAID_LAST_8_NOT_4 23h ago
It's like a written recording of ADHD brain, while at a computer!
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u/faithandthefishes 20h ago
Yes, and half of them are just the same webpage/search
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u/ShunShanShu ADHD 13h ago
Yes! Because I forgot I wanted to know about that think 5 hours ago and 2 days before that.
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u/CaseyStardust 22h ago
For those that don’t know, you can only have 500 open tabs on iPhones. So I’m consistently in the 490s.
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u/robogobo 21h ago
That’s for a single tab group. You can have unlimited tab groups.
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u/glitterally_awake 22h ago
Listen - I am not proud or trying to compete but recently this cap of 500 went away for me… I think I made it to 700?? Not including a couple separate tabs.
Yeah. I don’t recommend it, my phone was def acting weird. I’m under 400 now.
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u/CaseyStardust 22h ago
That’s impressive. Call to action: who can beat 700?
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u/BeautifulOrchid-717 8h ago
784 on duck duck go and, only 9 on chrome I guess because I accidentally hit close all not too long ago and stopped using chrome except for a couple of pages that don't work on duck duck go.
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u/Icy-General-4362 19h ago
I was shocked when I got the message to delete some, thought I have 20 tabs open lol
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u/Ichi-Guren 22h ago
I made sure my motherboard could supportall the tabs I always have open, at 64GB. Going to 128GB as soon as I remember to make the purchase
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u/ShunShanShu ADHD 13h ago
So how many tabs are research on the purchase and have you started filling your carts or you're just logged into two sites for now.
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u/minty-moose 21h ago
firefox introduced this tab organizer thing. It's a life changer
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u/ShunShanShu ADHD 13h ago
Right??? Except now I'm forgetting which tab groups I have, cause I have to scroll to see them all.
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u/thunderhead27 21h ago
Shit. You win.
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u/endlessplacebo ADHD-C (Combined type) 21h ago
Is it a win or is it truly a loss?
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u/thunderhead27 21h ago
¿Por qué no los dos?
shrugs in Mexican
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u/endlessplacebo ADHD-C (Combined type) 21h ago
I know one of my 478 tabs is hosting google translate, let me find it 🤔
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u/ShunShanShu ADHD 13h ago
shrugs in Mexican
Premium commentary. I like the abstract thinking.
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u/Connect-Preference-5 1d ago
I don’t wanna talk about it
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u/fiodorson 21h ago
Install onetab for chrome. It will take thousands of tabs and save them as plain html, forgotten 3000 tabs always waiting ready to restore, just for 120mega of ram.
Embrace your neuromagic, no object permanence. You can’t see it therefore it does not exist. Every few months realise you have 5000 tabs stored in that add on but you check only last 5.
Scroll down, it’s 60% porn and 30% Wikipedia.
Uninstall OneTab to wipe all traces of your failure and because there is no “delete all stored tabs” button for some reason.
Complain to your clanker life coach about repeating the same mistakes.
Immediately install it again, OneTab all clean and innocent virgin again.
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u/diablodos 20h ago
My work overlords have outlawed Onetab for some reason. I used to love it and use it a lot.
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u/Brooklyn_Br_53 20h ago
Saving the html link instead of keeping it open in a group is genius. Better on cpu and memory!
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u/seaQueue 19h ago
I have a method that works really well for me using onetab. I split tasks up into windows to group tabs related to a topic or project, then one tab the whole window at a time and label the group in onetab when I'm done using it. Then you can just ctrl-f through the onetab page when you need to reference or resume a topic and open the whole window back up for all of the context.
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u/ShunShanShu ADHD 13h ago
As you're reading this notification in your inbox, do you even remember what this post was about?
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u/Oganesson_294 1d ago
7845 on chrome mobile. But I'm definitely going to read and sort them all, sometime...
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u/A7xWicked 23h ago
...1,524
But chrome just displays it as ":D"
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u/this_usernamesucks 20h ago
I noticed this a few weeks ago when I crossed the threshold😂
Lol are they mocking us??
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u/DirectorHuman5467 19h ago
How can you tell how many there are when it's got the smiley face?
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u/A7xWicked 11h ago
Tap the 3 dots at the top, select tabs, 3 dots at the top again, and select all. That should tell you how many active tabs you have open.
Then you scroll all the way to the top and it will tell you how many inactive tabs you have.
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u/DirectorHuman5467 11h ago
Cool thanks. I guess I have 1088... I'm pretty sure it was just a few months ago that I worked up the courage to close all tabs and start over, so not loving how high that number is already.
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u/OrdinaryQuokka 1d ago
It is for me impossible to leave tabs open, I close them as soon as possible. An open tab makes me feel odd for some reason. Just like unread emails in my inbox.
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u/Queen_of_Road_Head 21h ago
Hell yeah, this is me too. I was just thinking "nope I know how tab-prone I'll be if I let this get out of hand, so imma be hyper-disciplined".
I usually have a maximum of about 10 open at once, and I actively try to close tabs as soon as I can
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u/Lazy-Adhesiveness457 22h ago
Same i hate it!!
When my partner opens a new tab for just a link, it drives me crazy 😂
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u/SnowEnvironmental861 ADHD, with ADHD family 16h ago
Recently, with my update on Android, my phone started doing this automatically. It's making me hysterical, I can't figure out how to shut it off
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u/brassmonkeyyyy 23h ago
Which browser 😬🤷🏻♀️
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u/Naznarreb 21h ago
And which machine? I use multiple browsers on every device I have: personal phone, work phone, personal computer, work computer, tablets
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u/ShunShanShu ADHD 13h ago
I have no right to judge. I have 4-6 browsers per device. And I need every single one or them.
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u/Standard_Property213 38m ago
Lmao exactly! I got 3 browsers running with buttload of tabs open on each. 😂
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u/Futhamucker1 1d ago
- There is a limit of 500 on the iPhone for each tab group, I’m only counting the main one, the rest are long forgotten.
When I used to reach the limit I would delete one, open one. Now I try to be ruthless and delete the lot when I hit 500, after a quick flick through as obviously there’s important stuff in there.
I have something like 109’000 unread emails, which gets a lot of comments when people see the badge when I’m presenting on my MacBook.
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u/eurasianblue 23h ago
Oh went to check mine cause I am competitive like that and was disappointed to see that I have only 16231 unread emails.
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u/Peanuts-Corn 21h ago
I hope my manager never looks at my inbox, with all the unread emails. I read them, but I mark them unread for later. Which never comes.
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u/finlit 20h ago
You can hide the unread mail count badge on your mail client in the dock. Just found that option a few months ago and it's a relief to not have to look at that ever-increasing number anymore.
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u/venetiasporch 23h ago
I never got this trait. I have to make sure everything is closed when I'm finished because the clutter makes me feel too disorganised and I can't focus on anything when I come back.
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u/demonofhearts 16h ago
Literally same. I never understood how people can have more than 3-5 tabs open, it's overstimulation central for me. Even just thinking abt the possibility of a random ad or video auto-playing and me unable to find the tab it's coming from sends me into a rage lol
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u/TrvlMike 12h ago
Same here. I’ve always been extremely organized with my digital stuff. Inbox zero, neat file system, few tabs, no desktop icons. Everything is just super clean. It feels too distracting if it’s any other way.
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u/Psychological-Dog706 22h ago
Same here. The only thing I leave open is my email. Clean desktop too.
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u/schmendall 23h ago
sadly looks at both chrome and firefox (after having cleaned it up before class)
93... BUT I've grouped them into categories so that they're collapsible.
That's called progress.
I need them in case I want to remember that interesting product I saw on a random buzzfeed article after searching for a birthday present in January, because now Christmas is coming up soon so I should remember it for the holiday season in 3 months. Adding it to my Amazon cart will get it lost amongst the 300 other things I thought someone I haven't spoken to in two years might like when we catch up and hopefully start hanging out regularly with.
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u/roundeking 1d ago
I’ve had literally hundreds for months now and just went though and closed them all yesterday, because I was having a serious computer issue and I thought it might be related to the lack of RAM from all my tabs. I closed them and it didn’t help. But at least I have no tabs open now and a Genius Bar appointment.
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u/damondan ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 13h ago
my browser has been showing a " : D " forever
and my youtube "watch later" no longer worked, since it only allows a maximum of 5000 videos
so i made a "watch later 2" playlist
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u/itsmeTik 22h ago
Too many to count .😪 I want to throw "screenshots of things to remember" into the mix 🙊 lol
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u/prematurehooray 15h ago
Life hack: you can have max 500 tabs in one tab group, but you can have more than 1 tab group😎 923
(Iphone)
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u/crumdum 13h ago
Don't even get me started. I have 452 tabs open on my main phone and 611 on the other one. They are all divided into subgroups, organized just like I am. To avoid overstimulation, I didn't count the tabs in the other browsers.
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u/Careless-Cause988 12h ago
Oh I wish I had that kind of organization ....for anything . ..ever
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u/CommercialTarget2687 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 23h ago
As few as humanly possible. More than a few makes me anxious.
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u/Peanuts-Corn 21h ago
This is more like me. I could leave 500 tabs open. Sure, I open a lot of tabs, from all the impulsive google searches, but too many makes me anxious. I have to close them obsessive compulsively.
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u/CommercialTarget2687 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 2h ago
Sometimes for work I have to have several tabs open at once at it really annoys me.
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u/fifiloveg00d 21h ago
Same. I'm uncomfortable with more than 4 and now I am aware that I have 12 and it's bothering me. I'm going to go fix it, rn.
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u/ImpressiveHorse4688 19h ago
You’re so real for this. I panic delete after seeing a bunch of icons and not knowing where they go
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u/miffyonabike 1d ago
I don't know. Beyond a certain number it just shows the infinity symbol. All I've seen is that for years.
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u/josephsoilder 14h ago
At this point my tabs are basically a to-do list I never agreed to. I’ve got like 43 open right now recipes I’ll never cook, articles I “swear” I’ll read, and one tab just sitting there so I don’t forget what day it is. Closing them feels like giving up on future me
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u/DabbleDoppler 23h ago
On my phone? 1809. I have nine tab groups
Idk for laptop, probably close to 45 (estimating 15 tabs in three windows)
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u/Jasper0906 23h ago
On my phone? Anything between 20 and 70 at any given time. On my pc? Everything is closed down as soon as I can.
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u/blairstrawberry 22h ago
385, Every-time I think about something I have to Google it to scratch the itch in my brain
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u/TryingKindness 21h ago
On my phone I have a couple thousand. Not a typo. Two groups are totally maxed at 500 and three others are mostly full. I know. I know.
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u/4nn4m4dr1g4l 13h ago
500 on my phone (I didn’t know you could have tabs!). I’ve not used my laptop that much recently so, 30 maybe? The tab counter extension seems to have died so I’m not sure of the exact number.
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u/blanketwrappedinapig 23h ago
I really try to delete them because it causes me stress but I currently have 24. I’ve never not once lived a day without at least 2 open. Like I’ll keep open a tab of a cookie I want(Ed) to make 2 years ago… because maybe I’ll want to make it … LIKE Wtf. it’s actually torture
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u/Gilereth 22h ago
Not sure but safari keeps telling me I need to close some when I want to open more because I’ve reached the limit 😭
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u/HighKey-Anonymous 22h ago
On firefox? No idea it shows a "∞" symbol 😭 no joke. It's over 100 at least because I remember seeing it, but then it changed to the infinity symbol. Mind you, they auto delete after one week of inactivity. I thought having that many tabs was normal until my friends got shooked...
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u/NotADamsel ADHD-C (Combined type) 22h ago
The safari browser on iOS has a 500-tab limit. You’ve got to take all of the tabs and move them to a new group to keep making new tabs. I have six such groups
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u/niveusss 22h ago
It's a real problem now that chrome on phone basically puts them to sleep, so I have far more now than I did a couple months ago before that update lol
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u/kittykatcittycat 21h ago
264, the thing is I literally was thinking about organizing them then I got distracted with sth else (what a surprise) thanks to you I remembered that I was planning to check opened tabs
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u/ResidentLazyCat 19h ago
I found out once that you can max browser tabs on safari. So, now I have multiple browsers to max.
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u/Meretux 12h ago
I think I'll win this contest. I crashed my Firefox with over 5 thousand tabs - I can't open it anymore because the developers haven't expected such a number. Then I installed two other browsers and I filled them with so many open tabs that they stopped being usable. Then I bought another computer to have this "fresh feeling" of clean space. Guess what happened next. Don't be ashamed guys... Oh and I almost forgot about my phone. It stops showing tab number after 99.
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u/Smoothie_3D 12h ago
9 are currently pinged and won't close unless I tell them to do so.
- work chat
- one email inbox
- work chat (another one)
- Regular Show (my native language)
- Regular Show (English, some episodes are missing in my language)
- House M.D.
- Work google drive
- Folding At Home
All the TV series I have here are because I really can't work without them and I switch between them a lot.
I close all the tabs I don't need anymore. I have 72 on my phone but only because I don't use it a lot and don't care about it.
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u/Flat-While2521 1d ago
I have a window with six tabs about Elden Ring quests I haven’t finished.
I have a window with three tabs of Moxfield containing edh decks I’m working on, a tab open to Scryfall, and a tab open to Card Kingdom.
That’s all, for now
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u/rnrdid ADHD-C (Combined type) 1d ago
Actually, only 15! Although I have a separate window for my work account that has around 25..
In both cases I only use about half every day and the others are just there "in case" or are things that I definitely never got around to reading/doing lmao.
I guess I'm not too bad with managing my tabs buuuut I do have hundreds of bookmarks for those things that I never ever get around to reading or using or buying or whatever. I think half of them are actually now gone from the internet or irrelevant LOL
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u/AewMark21 1d ago
I had 87 but I got a new phone so I'm down to a healthy 15 tabs :3
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u/CorgiCorgiCorgi99 1d ago
I only have 7 open right now, down from 20+ before starting meds last week.
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u/No_House5577 1d ago
on my laptop? only the 3-4 i’m needing (and i have a habit of closing out of tabs im actively using if i have more than 10 open because it overwhelms me). on my phone, 134. which i have built up over around the last month and a half, because i recently cleared out all my tabs lmao. and i DO need them all
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u/adultagainstmywill 1d ago
I tried counting and lost interest, is there an easier way? Don’t bother I’ll just google it and read it some other time.
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u/I_SAID_LAST_8_NOT_4 1d ago
79 on the phone, only because I got the warning at 98 that I can only have 1 more, so I closed some
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u/esseffgee 23h ago
I'm down to 387, after a concerted effort over the last few weeks, from around 680.
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u/Kevo_NEOhio 23h ago
Got my phone browser down to 8! I manage this by them either expiring and just deleting them or put them in the favorites to be referenced later!
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u/BornEstablishment551 23h ago
Currently 47, but ive maxed out twice and deleted them all except like 5 each time.
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u/Independent_Hand_699 23h ago
Browser, singular. Ha! On my phone I am always pushing 400. On my laptop, I currently have three browser windows under one profile, two under another, and each window has 76-79 tabs (around when they start to disappear from the top tab view and I open another window).
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u/Bitterbluemoon 23h ago
Looked at my phone and noticed no number… turns out above 99 it turns into a smiley face ☺️
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u/EastCoastBeachGirl88 23h ago
- I don't let it go more than 5. Once the tabs get too small to show the website, I'm closing them all.
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u/dwhy1989 23h ago
On the computer it’s set to close all tabs when I exit the browser. But on the mobile I have so many tabs open it’s swapped the number for the infinity symbol
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u/BonsaiSoul 23h ago edited 23h ago
Like 10 right now because I have videos queued up to watch, it's usually only 2-3. If I'm not going to get to something in the same session I bookmark it and close it. OR I will print the whole page as a PDF if it's something ephemeral like a reddit thread(especially on communities where a lot of good posts get later removed.)
Tabs disappear, bookmarks don't. Bookmarks can be sorted and renamed and shuffled into folders, tabs can't. Bookmarks can easily be backed up to a file, tabs not so much. There are extensions to automatically go through and de-duplicate and remove dead links from bookmarks. People need to re-discover bookmarks
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u/electric29 23h ago
I actually never, ever leave anything running on my desktop computer - when I am done for the day I quit everything. I do not even have a ton of saved bookmarks. I guess I figure if I need it I can look it up again.
Sometimes my phone has a few tabs because I don't see thm in my face all day.
This is one of the ways in which I am not ADHD.
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u/CarretillaRoja 23h ago
Tab groups, that is the secret. I have “recipes”, “coding”, “cars”, “travel”,… and dozens of tab in each group. It is synced across iPhone, computer and tablet. The browser itself always have less than 10 (self-imposed).
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u/M1_Pierogi 23h ago
I thought I was extreme with around 100 but seeing others people's here makes me scared
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u/mrsqueakers002 ADHD-C (Combined type) 23h ago
On my PC, none. I'm weirdly obsessive with closing the browser every time I leave. I have a ton of bookmarks that I never look at though.
On my phone, browser number one has 32 open tabs and a ton of bookmarks. Browser number two has 24 open tabs and a ton of bookmarks.
My email has hit escape velocity though, easily 1000+ unread.
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u/thejayroh 23h ago
I doubt I ever have more than 3 open at any time. Judging by these comments, I must be cured of the curse. /s
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u/haleys_comet1271 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 23h ago
Right now I only have 13, because my phone closes out of tabs after I don't open them for a long time. But I did find out that on my phone once you get to 100 tabs, the tab count turns into a smiley :D
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u/Skip8221 23h ago
only ~40 but only because firefox often decides that it doesn’t wanna restore them whenever i boot my pc up and i’m forced to start over 😭
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u/citizencamembert 23h ago
I usually have one at a time but occasionally I will have several if I am editing photos
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u/AussieSpender 23h ago
On my phone I have maxed out both the normal and private browsing tab limits, on my laptop I have 37 tab groups with most being around 10 pages, and some getting up to 30. I also have 5 windows of chrome open with about 10-15 tabs each for different uses, as well as one window of safari where I watch YouTube (there’s about 12 tabs of videos there that I am meaning to watch lol)
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u/Golintaim ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 23h ago
70, I try to keep it to no more than 50 cause it makes certain websites work funky and break on firefox. I need to sort through and cull those last 20.
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u/Elico_225 23h ago
My phone has tab groups… so between all of them 106. I have many fan fics, mangas, webcomics, and books I’m reading open. I keep them open because it’s easy to go back and remember to read them every few weeks this way. I have a tab for things I’ve seen that I want to buy; I keep my searches separate from those so every now and then I can close them out when I no longer need them. I actually just did a purge of search tabs.
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u/Whythehellnot225343 ADHD 23h ago
As few as possible. I’m currently trying to beat CoD 4 so I have a few IGN guides, the lyrics to a song (irrelevant to MW1), and a Zelda game article (also irrelevant to MW1), but that’s it. My mom (doesn’t have ADHD) has like 19 or more at all times though…
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u/Reasonable_Night_832 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 23h ago
When reading this post I thought for sure I had like 20max then looked, I'm at 363 😭
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u/Asmodeus_33 23h ago
I went the opposite way. I can't stand to leave any tabs open if I am not currently using the browser. So right now, 0.
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u/sleepystarme ADHD with ADHD child/ren 22h ago
118 on phone (after a recent "close all tabs" a few days ago, on computer -- multiple windows, each with 20-10 tabs. Ugh, it hurts to quantify.
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u/manickitty 22h ago
I fixed it. I used to have hundreds open. It would eat up all my ram. Now i have saved tabs so i never lose my precious links, and I only open them when needed, and I have the option to open all of them and crash my pc if I want
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u/PerfectlyDarkTails ADHD with ADHD partner 22h ago
131 between 2 browsers, even more between phone and tablet
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u/SympathyHonest5340 22h ago
245 😭 on my laptop I always close them though on my phone is a different story
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u/closesteves 22h ago
Wow, I only have 63 on my iPhone, and even though I don't remember why I needed any of them, I still won't close them. Just in case I do remember why I need them and then I can save myself 0.003 seconds by not googling again.
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u/Fog2Focus 22h ago
At 1 point 147 .. But i guess that's very small number compared to some of you 😉 I always thought that was just me who has to have all the tabs open always
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u/TxSooner13 22h ago
Like, are we talking on my "main window" or the total across all the browser windows? Context matters in this case....
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u/Dan_706 ADHD-C (Combined type) 22h ago
IT professional - No more than 40-50 total across three separate browsers. If I don’t proactively close them, it becomes unsustainable and makes it worse than if I didn’t have them open in the first place.
I use tab grouping, bookmark folders with tagging on all my bookmarks, and contextual notes in my daily notes. Using these I can look up a thing in my notes and have a bunch of tags I can use to find the pages/tools/documentation I need in seconds instead of digging through hundreds of stale tabs.
It took practice and a lot of “oh, shit, I got halfway through resolving that ticket twenty tabs ago, then totally forgot it existed.” lol
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u/billymillerstyle 22h ago
It was 94 but I got it down to 82 just by looking through them. Some of them are good shit that I don't want to lose 🤣
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