Guide

How to sync Chrome tab groups between profiles and computers

Chrome saves tab groups per profile. This guide covers what Chrome's saved groups do, where they stop, and how to carry a group into another profile or machine.

Last reviewed 4 September 2026

What Chrome already gives you

Chrome lets you save a tab group so it survives closing the window, and a saved group follows your Google account to your other devices when sync is on. That covers one scenario well: the same profile, a different machine.

Where it stops

A saved group belongs to the profile that created it. Switch to another profile and the group is not collapsed or hidden — it does not exist there. Because groups are attached to a Google account, they also cannot cross between two accounts, which is the situation anyone with a work and a personal profile is in.

Manual ways to move a group

  1. Bookmark the group. Right-click a tab in the group and choose to bookmark all tabs; you get a folder you can then share with the other profile by whatever bookmark method you already use. You lose the group itself — colour, name and grouping — and gain a folder.
  2. Copy the URLs. Fast for three tabs, unbearable for thirty, and there is no update path.

Both are one-off copies. Add a tab tomorrow and the other side is stale.

Keeping a group synced properly

A cross-profile extension can recreate the group itself in your other profiles and keep its membership matched. Braid Sync's tab group syncing works this way: nominate a named group, and the other participating profiles receive it with the same name and colour, collapsed and with tabs unloaded.

The unloaded part matters more than it sounds. A research group of forty tabs that opened live in every profile would make the setup unusable; receiving it as a collapsed, zero-memory group means you can share generously.

What never travels with a tab

  • Session cookies — the other profile will be signed out, as it should be.
  • Form state and scroll position.
  • Unsaved page state of any kind.

A synced tab is a title and a URL. If a tab only works because you are logged in as a particular account, expect a sign-in page on the other side.

Between computers

The same mechanism handles a second machine: the profile there joins the same shared set and receives the group. Cross-device sync covers the timing and licensing detail.

Try Braid Sync free for 7 days

Install it in the profiles you actually use, pick the folders and groups worth sharing, and see the merge land. No card required.