What’s new in Chrome 119: Saving and syncing tab groups

Following right in Google Chrome 118‘s footsteps, the next Chrome release is here in early stable, as Google announced in its Chrome releases blog: Chrome 119. Due to a change in the company’s schedule, this version is reaching us much earlier than it usually does, with only three weeks between it and its predecessor. Nevertheless, there are a few interesting changes in this release, and we’ll dive into everything you need to know here.

Chrome 119 will let you save and sync tab groups

Google has long been experimenting with syncing and saving tab groups, and with Chrome 119, it looks like the company is getting ready to roll it out to more users. While we were not able to replicate tab saving and syncing without activating some flags (chrome://flags/#tab-groups-save, to be specific), Google announced it as part of its Enterprise release notes.

Once it’s rolled out or once you have it enabled manually, a new “save group” option will appear in tab group’s right click menu. When you toggle it on, the tab group will appear in your bookmark bar right below the address bar. From here, you can easily re-open it after you close it. The group will also be synced to other devices with the flag enabled. Enterprises can deactivate this option for its users completely.

Chrome 119 gets a smarter address bar

Google announced a number of tweaks to the address bar, rolling out in stages at the moment. For one, typos are automatically detected and corrected by comparing close hits with your browsing history and popular websites. For another, Chrome allows you to search for bookmark folders, making it easier to dig through your potentially vast knowledge base for the web. The company also improved the visual layout of suggestions below the address bar, making it easier to dig through them.

While technically not tied to Chrome 119 itself, the release of the new version coincides closely with the features’ announcement.

Chrome 119 for iOS lets you continue browsing seamlessly across devices

Believe it or not, some features on Chrome are exclusive to Apple devices, and this is true for this one as well. Chrome 119 for iOS lets you quickly pick up where you stopped with a banner at the top of the browser, showing you a website you recently opened on another device along with a button to open it.

You can achieve something like it by heading to the overflow menu and looking through your Recent tabs, but this is definitely more convenient.

Chrome 119 is working on intelligent tab organization

Along with tab group syncing, Chrome 119 was spotted working on intelligent tab organization when it was in Canary. While the specifics of this feature are currently still unknown, it seems to be aimed at calming the chaos when you have too many tabs. It’s visible as a sweep button next to the tab switcher to the left or right of your tabs (depending on which desktop operating system you use).

Tipster Leopeva64 speculates that the button may house an interface that lets you create and manage tab groups more easily. It could also be used for reordering your tabs. In any case, we will likely have to wait a few more Chrome releases until we know what exactly this is good for.

Chrome 119 experiments with hover link previews on desktop

Another feature that isn’t nearly ready for launch was first spotted in Chrome 119 when it was in Canary. With the right under-development tools enabled, you can see previews of links when you hover over them. The idea is reminiscent of Safari on iOS, which lets you long-press a link to preview its destination. Right now, the implementation in Chrome is still lackluster and more inconvenient than anything. The preview pops up way too quickly, and you have to manually dismiss it.

Get Chrome 119

Google Chrome 119 is now starting to roll out to the stable channel. The browser is currently in its early stable phase, meaning that it only comes to a select few users and may take more than a week until it reaches your device. This is meant to ensure that there are no critical bugs that weren’t caught in the beta release, making it possible for Google to pull and update this release in such an event. If you’re curious about the changes right away, you can still install the beta version of Chrome to get the full picture ahead of time. Otherwise, just wait until it reaches your phone or desktop via the usual rollout.