I’ve been using Opera for a long time, and I’ve watched it evolve from a fairly basic browser to a full-on efficiency machine. A big part of Opera’s appeal is how it manages tabs. Opera was the first to bring out Workspaces, where you can group tabs together in a way that prevents overcrowding and enables you to create customized Workspaces to house related tabs.
Recently, the Opera team released another feature — called Tab Traces — that makes it easy to see which tabs you’ve used most recently.
Also: 5 reasons why Opera is my favorite browser (and you should check it out too)
Here’s how it works: Tab Traces draws an underline on your most recently used tabs to indicate activity. The color of the underline changes from dark to light, depending on how active the tab is. The darker the tab, the more active it is. You can configure how many Tab Traces to use from Always, More Than 5 Tabs, More Than 15 Tabs, More Than 30 Tabs, and Never.
I set Tab Traces to Always because I try to keep each Workspace to under 10 open tabs but still want to ensure the feature works, no matter how many tabs I have open. If you regularly keep more than 15 or 30 tabs open in a Workspace, select accordingly.
Tab Traces is another handy feature that makes Opera stand out among the browser crowd.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
One thing to note about Trab Traces customization: If you configure it for, say, 15 tabs and you only have 10 tabs open, Tab Traces will not show.
In the most recent Opera update (I’m using version 116.0.5366.71), Tab Traces was added as a default feature. If you’re using a version older than that, you’ll have to enable the feature by going to opera://flags and searching for “foot.” You should see a listing for Tab Footprints. Enable that feature and Tab Traces — the new name for Tab Footprints — become available.
If you’re using the latest version of Opera, you won’t have to bother with enabling the feature.
Why I use Tab Traces
I started using Tab Traces – back when it became available as Tab Footprints — and have found it to be incredibly useful. When I have a lot of tabs open in a Workspace, I can quickly scan the row of tabs, check for the underlines, and know which tabs have been used most recently and are most active. If I click from one tab to another, that new tab will automatically have a dark underline. When I see a tab with a light underline, I know it wasn’t the last tab I clicked on but it has been recently active.
It’s an efficiency feature that works very well.
How to customize Tab Traces
What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need is the latest version of the Opera browser on Linux, MacOS, or Windows. (Sorry, mobile users, Tab Traces aren’t for you.)
The first thing to do is open Opera Settings. You can do this by either clicking the O button near the top left corner and then clicking Settings, or you can type opera://settings in the address bar.
Click on Features in the left sidebar and then scroll down until you see the “User interface” section.
There’s only one option for Tab Traces and those listed as “Show traces on most recently used tabs.” There’s a drop-down you can click and then select how you want the feature to function. If you don’t want to use Tab Traces, select Never. If you want to make sure Tab Traces works, regardless of how many tabs are open, select Always.
Also: Opera delivers a browser so dynamic it’ll make your friends on Chrome jealous
There’s only one option to configure for Tab Traces.
Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Once you’ve done that, you can close the Settings page and enjoy the newly configured Tab Traces feature, which should have you working more efficiently with your tabs.
