Google announced that it was working on adding a grid layout and grouping of tabs to Chrome on Android in September 2019. Since then, the company has launched this new interface for several Chrome users. However, until recently, the interface was not available to a significant part of the Chrome user base on Android. Google finally released the tab grid layout for a large number of Android users last week, and if you’re not a fan of the new look, here’s how you can disable it:
To disable the layout of the tab grid in Google Chrome on Android, you first need to navigate to chrome: // flags in the browser. Once there, look for “grid” and locate the “Tab grid layout” flag. Then, tap the drop-down menu button and select “Disabled” from the list below. Chrome will then display a prompt to restart the browser for the changes to take effect.
Tap the ‘Restart’ button in the lower right corner and wait for the browser to restart. After restarting, you will notice that the Tab Grid Layout flag has been disabled. However, all open tabs will still be shown in the new grid layout.
You will need to restart your browser again for the changes to take effect. To do this, open the Recents menu and close Chrome. Then, touch the Chrome app icon to reopen the browser. Your tabs should now appear in the old layout.
Note that you won’t be able to use Chrome’s new tab grouping feature if you revert to the old layout. Fortunately, Chrome allows you to easily switch back to the grid layout by activating the mentioned flag. Just be sure to restart your browser twice for the changes to take effect.