Arc Browser Features That Most Users Never Discover

Most browser users treat the address bar as a place to type URLs. In Arc, the Command Bar is the control center for the whole browser — switching spaces, managing tabs, running extensions, and triggering any action in the app without touching the mouse.

Double-clicking the empty area below your tabs also opens it, which is fast once it becomes muscle memory. If you are transitioning from Chrome, building the Command Bar habit first makes everything else in Arc easier.

• Press Cmd+T to open the Command Bar, or double-click the empty sidebar space below your tabs.
• Type any URL, search term, or action — nearly 100 browser actions are accessible, including opening split views and jumping to Spaces.
• Cmd+Shift+D reveals a traditional toolbar if you need to see the full URL of the current page.

Chrome handles multiple accounts awkwardly — you switch profiles and lose all your other tabs. Arc Spaces let you define named contexts (Work, Personal, Side Project) and switch between them without disrupting your other tabs.

Profiles take this further by giving each Space its own cookie jar. Your Work Space stays logged into work Gmail while your Personal Space stays logged into personal Gmail — both open at the same time, in the same browser window.

• Spaces group tabs under a named workspace — create one for work, one for personal, one per project.
• Assign a Profile to each Space to get separate cookies, sessions, and Favorites per Space.
• Two Spaces using different Profiles can stay logged into different accounts of the same service simultaneously.

Without Air Traffic Control, clicking a GitHub link in Slack might open it in whatever Space you are currently in — mixing work tabs into your personal Space. Air Traffic Control removes that friction by making the routing automatic.

This is particularly useful for services that require work accounts. Configure your company domains once, and every link from email or Slack lands in the right place without a second thought.

• In Arc Settings, set rules that send specific domains to a designated Space.
• Configure github.com and internal tools to always open in your Work Space, for example.
• Links clicked from any Space redirect to the assigned Space, keeping tabs sorted without manual moves.

Split View is useful for any task that requires comparing two pages: reviewing a pull request alongside documentation, checking a design reference while implementing it, or reading a ticket while writing a response.

Arc maintains full browser functionality in each pane — both sides scroll independently, run JavaScript, and can be navigated separately. Both pages stay live, unlike screenshot comparisons.

• Hold Option and click any tab to add it as a split alongside your current tab.
• Use Ctrl+Shift++ to add a right split directly from the keyboard.
• Press Cmd+L while in Split View to swap one of the panels out for a different URL.

In Chrome, pinning a tab just makes it smaller and harder to close. In Arc, a pinned tab is a bookmark with live preview — it stays in your sidebar, remembers where it lives, and lets you check its contents by hovering.

The quick-action button that appears next to certain service tabs is one of Arc subtler features. It saves a click every time you need to start a new document or compose a message without navigating to the app first.

• Pinned tabs in Arc stay locked to a specific URL — navigate away and a home icon appears that returns to the original URL on click.
• Hover over a pinned tab to preview the page content without opening it.
• Some services like Notion and Outlook show a quick-action button next to the pinned tab for creating new pages or emails directly.