> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://withfew.app/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How Few understands your tabs

> What Few works out about a tab, how it does it on your device, and what it does with the answer.

To do a better job than a timer, Few needs a rough idea of what each tab is: a
search results page you will never look at again is not the same as a document
you are halfway through. Few works this out **on your device**, from each tab's
address and title, and sends nothing about your tabs anywhere. There is no
switch for it, because there is nothing to switch off.

## How it tells

Few tries three things, in order, and stops at the first that knows:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Sites and pages it knows by name">
    YouTube, GitHub, Gmail, Wikipedia, Amazon, many banks and hundreds more,
    along with pages that give themselves away: search results, sign-in and
    error pages, checkouts, password and security settings. The app you're
    building counts too: `localhost` and other local addresses are filed with
    code, as work in progress.
  </Step>

  <Step title="A list of the most-visited sites">
    Built into the extension: the web's most-visited sites, each with its kind
    — news, shopping, video and so on.
  </Step>

  <Step title="A small model">
    For sites on neither list, a model built into Few reads the address and
    title and, when it's sure enough, says what kind of site it is, how likely
    you are to come back to it, and whether it looks throwaway or private. Each
    answer is only used where it was right at least nine times in ten when we
    tested it on sites it had never seen.
  </Step>
</Steps>

All three run in the extension. None of them sends anything.

## What Few works out

| Question                                                                               | What Few does with the answer                                                                                                       |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **What kind of site is this?** AI, files, chat, code, video, shopping…                 | Sorts loose tabs into groups when Smart grouping is on, and answers a [Condition](/docs/guides/workflows#conditions) on the kind of site |
| **Are you in the middle of it?** Work in progress, like the app you're building        | Gives it more time in Bin — see [below](#time-in-bin)                                                                               |
| **Is there nothing on it worth returning to?** A search page, a sign-in wall, an error | Keeps it out of groups, and gives it less time in Bin                                                                               |
| **Does it hold something private?** Banking, health, security, a personal document     | Never closes it from Bin on its own                                                                                                 |

Few only ever *answers these questions*; it never decides what to do. Your
workflow does that, and nothing Few works out shortens a tab's time in Bin to
less than an hour.

## Time in Bin

Your workflow's **In Bin for** step sets how long a tab waits before it is
closed — five days by default. Few adjusts that per tab, when it goes into Bin:

| What Few worked out                       | Time in Bin, on a five-day workflow          |
| ----------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| Nothing to come back to                   | A quarter: about 1 day (never under an hour) |
| Might glance at it again                  | Half: 2½ days                                |
| Worth coming back to — or Few is not sure | Your workflow's own time: 5 days             |
| Work you are in the middle of             | Double: 10 days                              |
| Looks private                             | Stays in Bin until you close it              |

The popup's Bin list shows each tab's own closing time, and says when Few will
not close one.

## How Few groups

With **Smart grouping** on, Few gathers your ungrouped tabs into groups, leaving
your own groups untouched. There's nothing to choose: it works in layers, each
catching what the one before can't.

<Steps>
  <Step title="By task">
    Tabs you opened from the same search become one group, named after it —
    **Search: flights to Lisbon**, holding the results page and every result
    you opened from it. The same goes for any page you opened **three tabs or
    more** from, named after that page. Chrome keeps track of which tab opened
    which, on your device.
  </Step>

  <Step title="By kind of site">
    Docs, AI, Shopping and the rest (below), worked out on your device.
  </Step>

  <Step title="By site, when one gets busy">
    When one site has **four tabs or more**, it gets a group of its own —
    **GitHub** rather than a crowded **Code**. A site Few can't place, like your
    own app or an internal tool, gets its group at **three**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="By time, for the rest">
    Whatever's left goes under **Today** or **Earlier**, by when you last used it.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Throwaway pages — search results, sign-in walls — are left out rather than
given a group of their own, unless they're the search a task started from.

**Tabs stay where they are.** Once a tab is in a group it stays there while the
group still fits: a task's or a site's group lasts until it's down to one tab —
a task stays together after you close its search — and the only move time makes
is from Today to Earlier, overnight. A new group needs at least
two tabs, and Few keeps to eight groups a window.

**Take a tab out and it stays out.** Drag a tab out of one of Few's groups, into
another group, or ungroup a whole group, and Few leaves those tabs where you put
them until you close them. Bin still looks after them as usual.

The kinds of site, with a few of what goes in each:

| Group        | For example                                                           |
| ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **AI**       | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity                                   |
| **Files**    | Google Docs, Sheets and Drive, Notion, Figma, Canva, Dropbox          |
| **Chat**     | Slack, Teams, Discord, WhatsApp, Zoom, Google Meet                    |
| **Email**    | Gmail, Outlook, Proton Mail                                           |
| **Code**     | GitHub and GitLab repositories, npm, PyPI                             |
| **Issues**   | Pull requests, Linear, Jira, Trello                                   |
| **Docs**     | Developer references and manuals: MDN, Stack Overflow, framework docs |
| **Research** | Wikipedia, papers, search results                                     |
| **News**     | News sites, blogs, long reads                                         |
| **Social**   | X, Reddit, LinkedIn, Hacker News                                      |
| **Video**    | YouTube, Netflix, Twitch, Spotify                                     |
| **Shopping** | Amazon, eBay, Etsy, any product page                                  |
| **Finance**  | Banks, PayPal, Stripe, accounting                                     |
| **Tools**    | Dashboards, admin consoles, calendars and other web apps              |

## When it can't tell

An answer is only used when it is clear. A tab Few can't place is left
filed under its site or under Today and Earlier rather than somewhere plausible
and wrong, matches no kind of site in a Condition, and keeps your workflow's own
time in Bin.

## Drafting with a sentence

Two buttons in the editor, **Describe it** in a Condition and **Describe how you
work** in the templates dialog, draft conditions or a whole workflow from a
sentence you type. Those send the sentence — only the sentence, only when you
press the button — and never a tab. [Privacy](/docs/privacy) has the details.
