How to Highlight an Active Tab in Chrome Browser

Chrome is a popular browser for its simplicity and security. It allows you to personalize the browser on your computer with extensions, apps, and themes. Among its various customization options, Chrome’s theme is the most sought-after, as it allows users to customize the browser interface to their mood and preferences. One can access themes from the Chrome web store.

The Chrome web store offers various themes that you can pick that best suit your user interface. However, most of the themes don’t help distinguish the active tabs from the rest of the background’s open tabs. If you are looking for ways to highlight an active tab and are not particular about the aesthetics connected to the theme, Chrome’s black-and-white theme is the simplest way to highlight the active tab from the background tab.

There are different ways to highlight themes apart from using a black-and-white theme. You can use custom themes to have an active tab’s color darker or lighter so that it is easier to identify it from the other open tabs. In this article, we explain different ways to highlight an active tab in the Chrome browser.

How to Highlight an Active Tab in Chrome

1. Highlight active tab in Chrome using Chrome theme
2. Highlight active tab in Chrome using custom themes

1] Highlight active tab in Chrome using Chrome theme

A Black & White theme from a Chrome theme web store offers a dark theme user interface with a black shade on the tab page and the tab bar. It highlights the active tab by featuring a white color to distinguish from the rest of the open tabs. Installing the themes is the same as installing the extensions in Chrome. Here is what you can do to add a back & White theme for your Chrome user interface.

• Launch your Chrome browser and go to Chrome web store.
• Search Black & White theme in the search bar and click on Add to Chrome button to install the theme.

Once the theme is installed, it changes the User interface of your browser automatically. The theme features the new tab page with black color and highlights the active tab. To uninstall the theme follow the below steps.

• Click the three-dot option to open the More menu.
• Go to Settings from the menu and click Appearance.
• Locate the option theme and click the Reset to Default button to uninstall the theme.

Once done, your original Chrome theme will be restored.

Apart from the black-and-white theme, you can find many other dark contract themes in the Chrome web store, which can be used exclusively to highlight the active tab from the background tabs.

2] Highlight active tab in Chrome using custom themes

You can build a custom theme using bright or light colors to highlight the active tab. The theme Beta is a free app that allows you to create a Chrome theme by adding a background image to the tab page and adding color to the tab. Depending on the image you choose for the background, the app automatically gives you the set of colors to choose for your theme

Here is how to create your custom theme to highlight the active tabs.

• Navigate to the Theme beta web app here.
• Upload the image for your background tab page.

• Click the color box to Choose the color for the tab.
• Once done click Pack and install option.CRX file will be downloaded to your Chrome extension page.
• Go to the extension page in the Chrome browser and enable the developer mode.
• Drag and drop the CRX file that is downloaded on the extension page.

7. Click on the pop-up box to confirm installing the theme.

It is worth noting that Once the theme is installed, it can be edited in the browser. However, you can create a new theme with the changes you want to make by going to the ThemeBeta web app.

How do I highlight the current tab in Chrome?

To highlight the current tab in Chrome, click on the tab you want to highlight. The active tab will be visually distinct with a brighter color or an underline, making it easier to identify. For enhanced visibility, you can also use extensions available in the Chrome Web Store.

How do you change the color of the active tab in Chrome?

To change the color of the active tab in Chrome, go to a New Tab page, click Customize Chrome in the bottom right. Select “Appearance” and choose a theme. Chrome will suggest colors to pair, which will change the active tab color.