Group IE tabs into one taskbar icon?

Question

I like that in Chrome, no matter how many tabs you have open, there is only 1 singular icon on the taskbar. Naturally, IE displays an icon per tab open instead. Is there a way to change this on Windodws 7 / IE9?

I came across this SU posted: Force IE to use one process per tab

But it didn't seem to do what I wanted. Not sure if it's actually relevant or I just misunderstood it and thought it was relevant.

Solution 1

You should just enable behavior that accomplishes what you want.

Internet Options -> Tabs

Then enable the option:

Solution 2

If I'm understanding you correctly, the solution is actually pretty simple.

In IE, open Internet Options and click the Tabs button. Uncheck the Show Previews for individual tabs in the taskbar checkbox.

Restart IE and then you will only have one taskbar icon - the same behaviour as chrome

Solution 3

Regarding the question by @Ramhound about his answer not being accepted, I have attempted to verify it by recreating the situation as reported by the poster. But I was unable to cause IE to display a separate taskbar icon per tab.

What I have tried :

• Unchecking the Internet Options entry of "Enable tab groups"
• Executing the registry tweak described by the poster
• Setting the taskbar to "Never combine".

I have rebooted after each change, but have never managed to have multiple taskbar icons for one IE instance.

I must therefore assume one of the following :

1. The poster has launched multiple instances of IE when the taskbar was set to "Never combine" and wrongly expected their icons to be combined, or
2. The poster has changed some other setting in Windows but has no idea what he did that caused this problem.

The second case is identical in effect to having a corrupted version of Windows. If the poster cannot remember what he did, the only solutions are Repair Installation, or if this doesn't help, the re-installation of Windows. But this seems to me like really too much trouble for such a small problem.

Comments

[Ramhound]

"IE displays an icon per tab open instead" - No...It doesn't....If it does then you have enabled that option.

[Karan]

@Ramhound: IE11 by default shows only one taskbar button per window (regardless of number of tabs in each window), just like Firefox does. I haven't tested with IE9 but IIRC it was no different. Perhaps the OP just needs to reset IE.

[Anandu M Das]

I dont think someone can help you better than this.

[Anandu M Das]

Someone doesn't get what is required by following this method doesn't make this answer invalid. There was no point in the downvote. I support.

[harrymc]

Only one taskbar icon, but also the preview of only one tab.

[harrymc]

@Ramhound: Abandoned posts and spurious downvotes are a fact of life. Been there, had that. Do not take it personally.

[Karan]

That just changes the number of thumbnail previews, not the number of buttons shown on the taskbar.

[Karan]

@Ramhound: Lots of question askers fail to accept answers even when they've themselves indicated that particular answers helped. In this case I think there's just an issue with the OP's setup, so this is hardly a great generic question that might help others. No-one has been able to replicate multiple taskbar buttons per window for IE.