Should I be concerned about my Tab Group usage consuming too much battery power on my MacBook Air and IOS devices?
I have fully embraced the Safari Tabs Group feature, using different groups for Work, News, Social Media, Learning etc, with about nine groups in total and 4-8 tabs per group — around 55 tabs in total. This set-up is used most on my iMac, but I love that these persist across my mobile devices too — MacBook Air, iPad, and iPhone.
I have heard that on some browsers—Chrome in particular—using too many browser tabs can be a real drain on the battery. Whilst I am aware that Safari is generally better at energy usage, and I have no issue on my permanently powered iMac, should I be concerned about my Tab Group usage across my battery-powered mobile devices, especially my MacBook Air?
My MacBook Air is a few years old now and I am aware the battery dos not last as long — maybe using fewer Safari Tab Groups will help a little?
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Colin
55 tabs! I would be concerned, yes. Not just for battery, but for productivity as well.
Note that a tab by itself won't use battery. It is the web page that uses battery. Some pages will use very little. Others will use a lot as they have things updating and animating and changing. With 55 tabs open, chances are you have some power-hungry pages there.
It sounds like you have a lot of web pages that you like to check. That's fine. I do too. But use bookmarks to go to them when you want. Don't keep them all "live" and updating in tabs. Put them in your favorites bar in folders for easy access. Go to them when needed.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxGLNZDoYEI for how I do it.
Gary — thanks for your prompt response — very helpful as usual!
I clearly need to be a bit more judicious in my use of tab groups and make more use of favourite bookmarks too, but at least some of them are a great productivity aid — eg my Accounting Group quickly gets me to all the web services I need for my business bookkeeping.
Your response did also get me thinking about what are the intended / useful use-cases of Safari Tab Groups?
Maybe others can chime in here with their ideas.