Consider yourself to be a clued-up user of Google Chrome for Android? So did I…until I discovered the following gestures that make using the browser a teeny tiny bit easier on equally teeny tiny screens.
Do you use them? Pull your phone out of your pocket and play along as you read. On the off chance you’re a smarty pants who does know all of these tricks, show them to someone who doesn’t.
Tab Switch Swiping
Longtime users of Chrome on Android may remember that you used to be able to switch between running tabs on the mobile version by swiping in from the edge of the screen.
Google sort of retired this feature last year. I say ‘sort of’ because you can still cycle between your open pages with a gesture, you just have to do it in a different part of the screen.
To try it out, first make sure you have more than one tab open. Then:
- Place your finger on the Chrome toolbar
- Swipe left/right to move to the previous/next tab
Since the tablet build of Chrome puts tabs on show at all times this gesture only works on the mobile version.
Single Move Menus
To launch or access an option in the overflow menu in most Android applications, you tap the vertical dot menu button, wait for the menu to appear, and then select the menu option you need.
But if you’re really lazy, you can reduce the amount of taps.
A feature unbeknownst to many, in most Android apps you don’t have to take your finger off the screen to select items from menus:
- Tap the menu button and slide your finger downwards
- Drag/slide to highlight the option you want
- Lift your finger off the screen to action it
Useful? Depends. The gesture is primarily aimed at making menus easier to use with your thumbs (rather than pointy finger picking).
Tab Switcher
Viewing a list of open tabs is simple: you just prod the ‘tab switcher’ icon in the toolbar and they exposé into view.
But a less pokey way to perform this action exists:
- Pull down from the toolbar
- Tab switcher overview is revealed
Now just pick the tab you want as usual or, with your finger still on the screen, push the stack back up to the top to return to the tab you were viewing.
Other Gestures
Those are three gestures you might not know, so here are three you hopefully do:
- In tab overview swipe taps to left/right to close them
- Double-tap on web-pages to ‘smart zoom’ content
- Pinch to zoom in on webpages.
Do you have any favourite tips or tricks for using Chrome on mobile? Let us know below or on Facebook.