Chrome Tab Groups for Teams: How to Share Workspaces

The Problem: Everyone Sets Up Their Browser Differently

When a new team member joins a project, one of the first things they need to do is find and open all the relevant tools, documents, and resources in their browser. The project board in Jira or Asana. The Figma design files. The staging environment. The API documentation. The shared Google Docs. The communication channels in Slack or Teams.

Without a standardized setup, every person builds their own browser workspace from scratch. This takes time, and people inevitably miss important resources. Someone forgets to bookmark the staging URL. Someone else never finds the design system documentation. The result is a team where everyone has a slightly different view of the project, and important context falls through the cracks.

Tab groups, combined with export and import functionality, solve this problem by letting you create a standard browser workspace and share it with your entire team.

How Tab Group Sharing Works

Chrome does not have a native tab group sharing feature. You cannot send a tab group to another user directly. However, you can achieve sharing through a three-step process:

1. Set up your tab groups with all the URLs, names, and colors your team needs.
2. Export the groups as a JSON file using an extension like TabGroup Vault.
3. Share the JSON file with team members, who import it into their own browser.

When a team member imports the snapshot, they get the exact same tab groups with the same names, colors, and URLs. No manual setup required.

Use Case 1: New Employee Onboarding

Onboarding a new developer, designer, or project manager to a team often involves sending them a long list of links: the code repository, CI/CD pipeline, project management tool, design system, communication channels, documentation wikis, and more. Typically this arrives as a bulleted list in a Notion doc or a Confluence page, and the new hire spends their first morning opening each link one by one.

With tab group sharing, you can replace that list with a single file:

1. Create tab groups that represent the new hire's workspace. For example: a "Dev Tools" group with GitHub, CI/CD, and staging URLs; a "Communication" group with Slack and email; a "Docs" group with internal wikis and API docs.
2. Export the snapshot.
3. Add the JSON file to your onboarding checklist or welcome email.
4. The new hire installs TabGroup Vault, imports the file, and has a fully set up browser workspace in seconds.

Use Case 2: Project Kick-Offs

When a team starts a new project, everyone needs access to the same set of resources: the project brief, design mockups, competitive research, analytics dashboards, and the project management board. Instead of each person hunting for these links, the project lead can create a tab group workspace and share it.

This is especially valuable for cross-functional teams where members come from different departments and may not know where to find project-specific resources. The shared workspace puts everyone on the same page, literally.

Example Project Workspace

Group Name	Color	Tabs Included
Project Brief	Blue	Project doc, timeline, success metrics
Design	Purple	Figma files, design system, brand guidelines
Development	Green	GitHub repo, staging URL, API docs
Research	Yellow	Competitor sites, market data, user research
Communication	Pink	Slack channel, meeting notes, standup doc

Use Case 3: Recurring Workflows

Many teams have recurring workflows that require the same set of tabs every time. Examples include:

• Sprint planning: The backlog, velocity chart, team capacity doc, and sprint board.
• Client reporting: Analytics dashboards, reporting templates, and client communication channels.
• Release management: CI/CD pipeline, release notes doc, staging and production URLs, and the incident response playbook.
• Content publishing: CMS, image editing tool, SEO checker, social media scheduler, and analytics.

For each recurring workflow, create a template snapshot that team members can restore whenever they need it. This eliminates the repetitive setup time and ensures nothing important is missed.

Step-by-Step: How to Share Tab Groups with Your Team

Here is the complete process for creating and distributing a shared browser workspace.

For the Team Lead (Creating the Workspace)

1. Install TabGroup Vault from the Chrome Web Store if you have not already.
2. Open all the tabs your team will need for the project or workflow.
3. Organize the tabs into groups. Name each group clearly and assign a consistent color. Use the same naming conventions your team already uses for projects and tools.
4. Open TabGroup Vault and click "Save Snapshot."
5. Export the snapshot as a JSON file. Give the file a descriptive name like "project-alpha-workspace.json" or "new-hire-onboarding-dev.json."
6. Share the JSON file through your team's usual channels: Slack, Google Drive, email, Notion, or your project management tool.

For Team Members (Importing the Workspace)

1. Install TabGroup Vault from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Download the JSON file shared by the team lead.
3. Open TabGroup Vault and click "Import."
4. Select the JSON file. The snapshot is imported into your extension.
5. Click "Restore" to open all the tab groups. Your browser now has the same workspace as the team lead, with all the right groups, names, colors, and URLs.

Best Practices for Team Tab Groups

Use Consistent Naming Across the Team

Agree on a naming convention for tab groups so that when people discuss their workspace, everyone knows what "the Dev group" or "the Client Reporting group" refers to. This also makes it easier to maintain and update shared templates.

Keep Templates Updated

When project URLs change (a staging environment gets a new address, a documentation site moves, or a tool gets replaced), update the shared snapshot and redistribute it. Outdated templates with broken links are worse than no template at all.

Store Templates in a Shared Location

Keep your JSON snapshot files in a shared cloud folder that the entire team has access to, such as a Google Drive folder or a SharePoint directory. This makes it easy for anyone to grab the latest version without asking for it.

Create Role-Specific Templates

Not everyone on the team needs the same tabs. A frontend developer needs different resources than a backend developer, who needs different resources than a project manager. Creating role-specific templates ensures each person gets a relevant workspace without unnecessary clutter.

Include a "Getting Started" Tab

Consider adding a tab in each shared workspace that links to an internal "getting started" document. This document can explain what each tab group is for, how to use the tools included, and who to contact for questions. It turns the shared workspace into a self-contained onboarding kit.

Alternatives to JSON Export/Import

If your team does not want to use an extension for sharing, there are a few lower-tech alternatives:

Shared Bookmark Folders

Create bookmark folders with the same structure as your tab groups and share them via Chrome's bookmark export (HTML file). Team members can import the bookmarks and open each folder as a set of tabs, then manually create groups. This works but is slower and loses the group metadata.

URL Lists in Documentation

Maintain a list of URLs organized by category in your team wiki (Notion, Confluence, etc.). Team members copy and paste URLs into their browser and create groups manually. This is the most common approach but the most time-consuming.

Chrome Profiles with Pre-Configured Groups

For organizations with IT administration capabilities, it is possible to distribute pre-configured Chrome profiles that include saved tab groups. This is complex to set up but works well for large organizations with standardized workstations.

Sharing Method	Setup Time	Preserves Groups	Ease of Use
JSON Export (TabGroup Vault)	Low	Yes (full)	Easy
Shared Bookmark Folders	Medium	No	Moderate
URL Lists in Wiki	Low	No	Slow to use
Pre-Configured Profiles	High	Yes	Complex setup

Real-World Example: A Development Team's Setup

Here is how a five-person development team might use shared tab group workspaces in practice:

• The tech lead creates a "Sprint 14" workspace with groups for the sprint board, the codebase (GitHub PRs and branches), the staging environment, and the deployment pipeline.
• They export it as JSON and post it in the team's Slack channel.
• Each developer imports it and adds their own personal tabs (like their IDE's web interface or their personal task list) outside the shared groups.
• At the end of the sprint, the tech lead creates a "Sprint 15" workspace and shares the updated file.
• Developers swap the old workspace for the new one by restoring the new snapshot. Outdated tabs from the previous sprint are automatically replaced.

This cycle takes minutes to maintain but saves hours of cumulative setup time across the team over the course of a project.

For more on tab group basics, read our complete guide to Chrome tab groups. To learn how to save your groups reliably before sharing them, see how to save tab groups in Chrome.