Creating Tabs on iGoogle
Earlier, we had discussed how to personalize your Google Search Page using iGoogle. As mentioned, there is a feature that allows you to add tabs to your personalized page. The tabs feature is useful when your main page is already too crowded and you want to add more gadgets to your iGoogle “page”. I particularly like to use tabs to organize my workflow by using different tags for work, entertainment, personal information, communications, and the like. It’s much like how you would have different windows and tabs on your Web browser.
To add a tab to your iGoogle page, look for the Add Tab link on the left area at the bottom of the header image.
When you click that, a screen that will ask you to supply the name of your new tab will appear.

You can check the “I’m Feeling Lucky” box if you want iGoogle to fill in the tab with contents according to what you named the tab. Let’s test the tab with the word “Mail”. Here is what will appear:
Note that iGoogle supplied the tab with different mail clients, from CheckMail to Windows Live Mail. If you scroll down, the page even displayed a Yahoo! Mail box.
You can also manually add gadgets to your page. Simply remove the check from the “I’m Feeling Lucky” box, and you are given a pop-up window that will say that there is “no relevant content” to be found for your tab, and that you must add the gadgets yourself.
Just click the big blue button that says “Look for new stuff to add” then you’re taken to this page where you can choose and add gadgets to your iGoogle page.
If you want to rename or delete your tab, just click on a tab while it is active.
You can now add tabs, fill them with gadgets, or delete them however you like!
I particularly like the I’m feeling lucky function, which lets me add tabs in a snap, without even having to manually add gadgets.
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I added tabs before iGoogle, and did not have the option to check “I’m feeling lucky.” I’d like to play with that feature on some of my tabs, but can’t seem to find any way to add it. Any suggestions?
hi cassie.
mind if i ask what OS and browser you’re using? i was able to add tabs, etc on iGoogle, but my browser is Mozilla Firefox, and I’m on OS X Tiger. This also worked in Mozilla Firefox in my Ubuntu Linux box.. maybe you should try Firefox, if you’re using IE…
I erroneously added Tabs to my account and cannot figure out how to delete them. Please help if you can.
Thank you for pointing out how to delete a tab - its been driving me nuts for months!
1) Does anyone know how to change the order of tabs? I want to move tabs that I have created and the only way I can see to do it is delete the tab, then create it again at the very back.. Surely Google would not have overlooked such a basic feature.
2) Is there a setting that lauches the gadgets in a new, pop-up window versus taking over the entire current window. With many of the gadgets, if you expand them, and use the content, then you can not switche back to the Google tab easily (like alt-tab).
[…] fit. How have you tweaked your iGoogle page? Let us know in the comments. — Wendy Boswell Creating Tabs on iGoogle [Google Tutor […]
Philip, to open a link in a new window you could hold Shift as you click on the link (apologies if you already knew that).
I prefer to browse using Firefox and hold Ctrl to open the link in a new tab. You can then easily use Ctrl-Alt or Ctrl-1 (or Ctrl-2, Ctrl-3 etc) to hop between tabs.
I changed the theme to the Teahouse one, I have a main tab for the things I use all the time (gmail inbox, a clock, a calculator, latest NYT headlines…)and a second tab for games, if I decide to take a quick break. And…that’s about it.
[…] ir Pageflakes, nepasant jų atotrūkio, derėtų susirūpinti. Naujausias iGoogle priedas - automatiškai turiniu užpildomas lapas, pagal jo temą. Bėda ta, kad turiu tik vieną GMail adresą, kurio reputacijos nenoriu gadinti, o taip knieti tam […]
Thanks for giving me the hint how to remove tabs again. Have been searching for a way to do this for hours
The only way I have found to “change” the order of tabs is to rename the tabs. Then drag and drop gadgets until everything is where it should be.
This is very labor intensive, and for a massive reorganization perhaps opening a temporary tab as a storage area could make it easier. Delete the temporary tab when complete.
So far, this is my most serious complaint about iGoogle.
To delete a iGoogle Tab, click the tab to bring it forward. Hover your mouse over the tab you are wishing to delete. There is a small downfacing arrow on the right hand side of Tab, this will bring up a small window where the option to delete is shown.
I found out a round about way of moving tabs. I first decide on the order in which i wish to rearrange the tabs. Then I pick all of them and I share it with my own gmail id (you can share a tab info by clicking on the title of the tab). I go to gmail and then have it added back to my home page one by one in the order that i want.
dave I have no idea how you came up with this but it works and I thank you.
HELP,
I want to delete tabs on igoogle homepage and do not know how.
Is there anyway you can delete everything on you igoogle Homepage and start over?
Please, somebody or anybody with any knowledge if this Please email me and help or point me in the right direction.
msdeby@gmail.com
Hi,
I want to create a personalized iGoogle page for my web application.but in iGoogle page, i want to display the online fillup form along with other information such as News,articles and afterthat how to make as a default page.i want the user could visit our website after filling up that iGoogle page that has our website form. or this iGoogle page redirect visitor to our website.
Thanks,
vipin
How do you make firefox retain igoogle customized tabs?
I had no problem adding TABS, but I can’t pull them up now to DELETE them. I want to delete some of them. HELP!!! GRO
would like to delete igoogle and u. k. reference as well. prefer to have google canada news as home page. frustated in n. s.
I want to delete the Add a Tab feature from my page entirely. How can I do this?
Help! I tried to follow the instructions to delete tabs but there is no small downfacing arrow on right side of Tab. I am using Mozilla firefox.
Thanks to anyone who can help.
For those of you having issues deleting/editing your tabs. If you are using Firefox and Greasemonkey make sure you disable any Greasemonkey scripts you have running on iGoogle. I was having the same issue you guys were having. Once I disabled those scripts and refreshed, I was able to delete/edit my tabs. Once my changes with final I just reenabled my scripts.
dave:
You are a lifesaver! Your “tab-moving” hack was perfect! It seems so simple once you think about it… but of course I didn’t.
Thanks!
my question is: how on earth do you remove gadgets you do not want?????????????
I actually have a question. Firefox will shut down when i try to open igoogle. It seems an though my igoogle page freezes up. Why is this? I really need help with this. I have never been able to even view my page since i added the items that i want.
Can anyone help me. I opened my igoogle page a long time ago. Now when I try to add a theme, move around anything or try to delete anything no matter what I do it reverts back to the original igoogle page. I have tried everything - deleting cookies, signing in and out, different computers, no firewall etc. It happens on mac’s pr pc’s - so firefox vs any others doesn’t seem to make a difference.
ANY IDEAS?!?!?!?!?
Shot in the dark here. Long story short, I have an iGoogle tab that can’t be deleted the regular way because it can’t be clicked on. (I made a stupid mistake trying to be smarter than I am. Don’t ask!) Is there a piece of javascript or some other alternative way of deleting a tab?
How do I delete a gadget from my igoogle home page?
Thank you for your help.
Jeff Lampert
Hi Jeff,
There should be a little X in the upper right of the gadget that will remove it from your page.
I want to know how to delete a a section on my Igoogle entitled “Classical Music”. I have follow the directions, but, nothing seem to work.
It seems Google has added the possibility to change the tab order, open your settings (http://www.google.com/ig/settings), under “Content”, select the tabname you want to move, and click on the up/down arrows.
How do I move a gadget from one tab to another? I want to reorganize. Is there a drag and drop method?
is there any way to make sure apps open in a new tab or window?
for instance, i have the wikipedia search engine app which is cool but it always opens in the current window which means i loose igoogle. which would seem to defeat the purpose. one would think there’d be a way to set it up to open those in a new window or tab.
any thoughts?
thanks,
jake
My igoogle tabs stopped working for seemingly no reason. It’s frozen on the home page. Any fixes?
Thanks,
Dawn
My igoogle tabs have stopped working also, for no reason I think. I’m using Firefox. It’s frozen on the home page. If I use IE7 then it works but it freezes with an error message when entering gmail.
I used iGoogle, clicked on the carbon footprint calculator and now I can’t close it or go to the other tabs because it wants me to save my settings but I don’t have or want an iGoogle identity/membership/whatever. So I’ve gone back to Google classic.
My son’s upset, though, he liked the gadgets.
I changed to an artists theme and it froze Igoogle. Now only the home page shows. I tried uninstalling Chrome and reinstalling to no avail.
Help me delete a tab loaded with a web page please.
I created a tab on igoogle and used the “I’m feeling lucky tab” and load Picasa web page into it. Now when I go to my igoogle page, I cannot click any other tabs, only the Picasa tab is highlighted. I tried clicking the drop down box on the tab and clicked “delete this tab” and then refreshed and did that about six times (!) and it did not work. Can anyone help? I use IE7. Thanks to anyone who can help me.
@Dawn:
Clear out your cookies. I have to log into everything again, but it works.
iGoogle’s tabs have failed twice for me today. I’m getting more and more annoyed. I’m looking for a more permanent fix.
iGoole is failing me as well. The tabs ’stick’, as in I can’t switch between them. I have put in a-lot of work so I’m very disappointed - I’m thinking of using IE7 for RSS now.
Can anyone help me?
How can I stop the background music from playing in my iGoogle homepage?
Please help! the music is really irritating!!! arrgggghhh!!!!
Thanks.