How to Merge Two Chrome Windows Into One

Two Chrome windows end up open more often than anyone plans for — one from a link that opened "in a new window" instead of a tab, one from restoring a crashed session, one from just forgetting a window was already there. Getting back to one window means moving every tab across, and Chrome doesn't have a single button for that. It has two ways to do it by hand, and one of them scales far better than the other.

There's no "merge windows" command — it's really "move every tab"

Chrome's window and tab menus don't include anything labeled "merge." What looks like merging two windows is actually moving every tab out of one window and into the other, one at a time or all at once. Once the source window has no tabs left, it closes itself automatically — there's no separate step to "close the old window" because an empty Chrome window can't exist.

That distinction matters because it means the actual problem to solve is "move N tabs from window A to window B," and Chrome gives you two very different ways to do that.

Method 1: drag tabs across, one (or a few) at a time

If both windows are visible on screen — side by side, or one over the other — you can drag directly:

1. Click and hold a tab in the window you want to empty out.
2. Drag it over the other window's tab strip.
3. Release when you see a thin insertion line appear between two existing tabs.

This works, and for two or three tabs it's fast enough not to bother with anything else. It gets tedious past that — each tab is its own drag, and a shaky drag can drop the tab in the wrong window entirely or fail to register at all. It also requires both windows to actually be visible at once, which isn't always true if one is minimized, on another virtual desktop, or on a second monitor you're not looking at.

Method 2: select all, then "Move tabs to window" — the one that scales

For anything more than a handful of tabs, skip dragging entirely:

1. Right-click any tab in the window you want to merge away.
2. Choose Select all tabs (or Ctrl/Cmd-click each tab you want, individually, if you only want some of them).
3. Right-click the selection again.
4. Choose Move tabs to window, then pick the target window from the submenu — Chrome lists every other currently open window by its active tab's title.

Every selected tab moves across at once, in its original left-to-right order, and the now-empty source window closes itself the instant the last tab leaves. This works even if the target window is minimized, on a different monitor, or on a different virtual desktop — the submenu doesn't require you to see the window first, only for it to be open.

Merging a tab group without breaking it apart

A tab group doesn't automatically survive a plain "select all, move" if you only select some of its tabs individually. To bring a whole group across intact:

1. Right-click the group's colored label (not an individual tab inside it).
2. Choose Move group to another window — this option only appears when more than one Chrome window is open.
3. Pick the destination window.

The group arrives with its name, color, and collapsed/expanded state preserved, sitting as one unit in the target window's strip.

What happens to the emptied window

Nothing you need to clean up manually. The moment a window's last tab is dragged out or moved via the menu, Chrome closes that window on its own — there's no "0 tabs" state to leave lingering, and no confirmation dialog to click through.

Merging is a one-time fix; the real habit is not ending up here again

Merging gets you back to one window today, but the underlying reason windows multiply — a link opened "in a new window" by a script, a crashed session restoring into two windows instead of one, a habit of Ctrl+N when Ctrl+T was meant — tends to repeat. Amazing Tabs makes scattering across windows less costly in the first place:

• Search across every open tab, in every window, with ⌘K / Ctrl+K — you don't need to know which window a tab is in before you can find it.
• Save tabs into named spaces instead of letting a second window become a dumping ground you eventually have to merge back in.
• Free for up to 100 saved links.

Stop losing track of which window a tab is in. Add Amazing Tabs to Chrome — free, no signup to install.

Quick recap

• Chrome has no native "merge windows" button — merging means moving every tab out of one window and into another.
• Dragging works fine for a tab or two but doesn't scale and requires both windows visible at once.
• Right-click → Select all tabs → Move tabs to window merges everything in one action, works across monitors and virtual desktops, and lists every open window by name.
• Right-click a group's label → Move group to another window brings a whole tab group across intact, instead of breaking it apart.
• The emptied window closes itself automatically the instant its last tab leaves — nothing to close manually.

Further reading: How to Move Tabs Between Chrome Windows for moving a handful of individual tabs rather than merging entire windows, How to Select Multiple Tabs in Chrome for every bulk action multi-select unlocks, or How to Detach a Tab Into Its Own Window for the opposite move — splitting one window into two.

Add Amazing Tabs to Chrome — free → Install from the Chrome Web Store. 100 saved links free, upgrade only if you want unlimited and cross-device sync. See pricing for the full breakdown — including the $99 lifetime deal (capped at 200 spots).