How to Close Duplicate Tabs in Chrome (Built-In Ways and Extensions)

To close duplicate tabs in Chrome, open Tab Search with Ctrl+Shift+A (Command+Shift+A on a Mac), type the site's name, and close the extra copies from the list. That works with nothing to install. If you collect duplicates every day, an extension can find and close every copy in one click.

Duplicate tabs are one of the most common reasons Chrome uses more memory than it needs. This guide covers four ways to clear them, fastest first, and the habits that stop them piling up.

The short answer#

• Tab Search (Ctrl/Command+Shift+A) lists every tab; close copies from there.
• Multi-select with Ctrl or Command, then close them together.
• An extension finds and closes all duplicates at once, keeping one of each.
• Switch to this tab in the address bar stops new duplicates.

What we measured on a Mac#

Tested on a MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) with 16 GB of RAM, macOS 26.3, Chrome 155, October 21, 2026. We opened the same Wikipedia article in five tabs, waited for them to settle, then closed four of them. Memory is the total footprint of every Chrome process in a fresh test profile, read with macOS's footprint tool.

Closing the four duplicates gave back 531 MB, about 130 MB per copy, for a light, text-heavy page. Copies of heavier pages such as Gmail, YouTube or a dashboard cost much more. A duplicate tab does nothing for you that the first copy does not, so it is the easiest memory there is to win back.

Why do duplicate tabs pile up?#

Because opening a page is faster than finding the tab you already have. With thirty tabs, each one is a tiny icon, so you search, click, and now Gmail is open three times. Links from email and chat open new tabs too, even when the page is already open.

Each copy is a full tab with its own memory. Two extra copies of a heavy web app can cost hundreds of megabytes, and they keep running in the background.

1. Tab Search#

Google's help page describes Tab Search: select the Tab Search icon in the tab strip, or press Ctrl+Shift+A (Command+Shift+A on a Mac). You can also type @tabs in the address bar, then press Tab or Space and type a word.

1. Open Tab Search.
2. Type part of the site name, for example "docs".
3. Every matching tab is listed. Hover over the extras and click the X to close them.

This is the fastest built-in method when you know which site is duplicated.

2. Select and close several tabs at once#

1. Hold Ctrl (Command on a Mac) and click each duplicate tab. Or click one tab and Shift-click another to select everything between them.
2. Press Ctrl+W (Command+W), or right-click one of the selected tabs and choose Close tabs.

Tip: drag tabs of the same site next to each other first. Chrome lets you drag tabs along the tab strip to reorder them.

3. Close other tabs from a window#

If one window has become a mess, right-click the tab you want to keep and choose Close other tabs. Everything else in that window closes. Use Ctrl+Shift+T (Command+Shift+T) if you closed something you needed; Chrome reopens closed tabs in the order they were closed.

4. Close every duplicate in one click#

Chrome's own tools make you find duplicates by eye. An extension can do it automatically: it reads the address of every open tab through Chrome's tabs API, groups tabs with the same address and closes all but one.

We built this into Cleaner. In Cleaner Pro, one click closes the extra copies of every page and keeps one of each. Pro also puts tabs to sleep after 30 minutes without use, so the copies you keep give their memory back too. The free version includes the Tab Manager side panel, which sorts open tabs by name, recent use or estimated memory, and closes a few selected tabs at once. Pro is a one-time $19.99 for up to three browsers.

Whichever duplicate closer you use, check how it decides two tabs are the same. Pages that differ only by a tracking tag at the end of the address may or may not count as duplicates.

How do you stop opening duplicates?#

• Use Switch to this tab. When you type a site's name in the address bar and the page is already open, Chrome suggests Switch to this tab. Take it.
• Pin your all-day sites. Right-click email, calendar and chat tabs and choose Pin. They shrink to icons at the left and are always in the same place.
• Group by project. Tab groups keep related tabs together, so you see what is already open. See Chrome tab groups explained.
• Close at the end of the day. Save what matters with Ctrl/Command+Shift+D (how to save all tabs) and start fresh tomorrow.

Which method should you use?#

The bottom line#

Use Tab Search to spot and close copies, multi-select to close several at once, and an extension if duplicates are a daily habit. Then take Chrome's Switch to this tab suggestion so they stop coming back. Fewer copies means less memory used, and if Chrome still feels heavy, our guide to Chrome using too much memory covers the rest.