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The Browser Company released this week’s update to Arc browser with several interesting features: Arc Sync, Tidy Tabs, and Instant Links. With these automatic tab groups, you can easily save them in Pinned Tabs, move selected folders to another Arc space, or copy all its tabs as Markdown links for an Obsidian note or map.

Arc Sync

The new Arc Sync feature provides end-to-end encryption for your sidebar across your devices that is fast and doesn’t depend on iCloud. This cross-platform capability is a step towards Arc, anywhere (iCloud sync to be phased out soon).

Click “Turn On” in the Arc Max tab of Arc > Settings (Cmd + comma), just below the Sync Sidebar with iCloud setting.

Tidy Tabs

Now you have a browser that tidies for you. It automatically makes sense of all those links that you collected while reading your email, feeds, or social media; or maybe you were just browsing interesting stuff for your efforts, or researching a topic that you’re working on. This is especially handy during the Add phase of your PKM workflow.

Previously, you would have clustered related tabs together and then selected multiple related tabs into a tab group and assigned a folder name. Now your browser helps you get this done with Arc Max AI. Then you might drag selected folders into your Pinned Tabs, maybe under a dated folder within Calendar, or perhaps move them to another space for further Relate work, perhaps for Efforts.

Press the broomstick 🧹 icon at the top of your Today Tabs in the sidebar, and let your Sidebar organize itself whenever you have over six Today tabs. Tidy Tabs only organizes Today Tabs, which appears below the + New Tab button. Your other tabs will not be affected. You can turn on Today Tabs by CMD + T > Settings > Max.

In my Web space I use for browsing, I had 33 Today tabs in my sidebar; Arc analyzed them with AI and grouped them into the following 6 folders.

• Javascript
• Cooking
• Obsidian
• Apple
• Diabetes
• Other

For example, I had clicked some email links on Medium about Apple Vision Pro and Apple Watch, as well as another one on Pickle (pkl) that Apple introduced as a new open source programming language for configuration. Arc automatically grouped them together in a tab folder named Apple.

Instant Links

What if you could just tell your browser exactly what you wanted, and it understood you? Well, today you get a glimpse into the future of what browsing the web might look like.

Turn on the new Instant Links feature with Arc > Settings > Arc Max > Instant Links, and let Arc browse for you.

• Press Shift + Enter after entering a web search into Command-T, which instantly opens the top result.
• You can also search multiple queries – try experimenting with your searches.
• To create a folder of tabs, use “Folder of” before your search query; for example, “Folder of the cutest cat breeds”

Try this:

• Press CMD +
• Enter this search: Folder of the cutest cat breeds
• Press Shift + Enter
• Arc will search the web and immediately open the top results with the web page from the SprucePets site.
• But it also automatically creates a tab folder in your sidebar with the name “Cutest Cat Breeds” that will contain these 5 tabs:
  • 23 Cutest Cat Breeds Anyone Will Love
  • 20 Cutest Cat Breeds of 2024 | Picture…
  • Cutest Cat Breeds | Petfinder
  • What are the cutest and rarest breeds…
  • The Cutest Cat Breeds: 14 Cats You’ll…

You might enjoy last week’s announcement that shows “A browser that browses for you”: Meet Act II of Arc Browser – YouTube video (15 min).