Google first announced that it was in the process of adding grid layout and tab grouping in Chrome on Android in September 2019. Since then, the company has rolled out this new interface to several Chrome users. However, until recently, the interface was not available to a significant portion of the Chrome user base on Android. Google finally rolled out the tab grid layout to a large number of Android users late last week, and if you’re not a fan of the new look, here’s how to turn it off:
To disable tab grid layout in Google Chrome on Android, you must first navigate to chrome: // flags in the browser. Once there, search for “grid” and look for the “Tab Grid Layout” flag. Then tap the drop-down menu button and select “Disabled” from the following list. Chrome will then display a prompt to restart the browser for the changes to take effect.
Tap the ‘Restart’ button in the bottom right corner and wait for the browser to restart. After the reboot, you will notice that the Tab Grid Layout flag is disabled. However, all open tabs are still displayed in the new grid layout.
You must restart the browser for the changes to take effect. To do this, open the Recent menu and close Chrome. Then tap the Chrome app icon to reopen the browser. Your tabs should now appear in the older layout.
Do note that you won’t be able to take advantage of Chrome’s handy new tab grouping feature if you revert to the old layout. Fortunately, Chrome makes it easy to switch back to grid layout by enabling the aforementioned flag. Make sure to restart the browser twice for the changes to take effect.