How to Use Brave’s New Container Tabs to Protect Your Privacy and Stay Organized

Brave has quietly added a feature that many privacy-conscious users have wanted for years: container tabs. Previously, only Firefox offered this capability through an official extension. Brave’s built‑in version does the same thing – and sometimes more – without requiring any extra add‑ons. If you use the same browser for work, shopping, banking, and social media, containers can help you keep those activities separate, prevent cross‑site tracking, and reduce the clutter of multiple windows or profiles.

What happened

Beginning with version 1.70 on desktop, Brave includes a native container tab system. Each container is a completely isolated browsing session with its own set of cookies, site data, and local storage. Sites loaded in one container cannot see data from another container. That means a tracker on a news site you opened in a “personal” container won’t know what you searched for in a “shopping” container – even if you stayed logged into the same browser.

The implementation is built into the browser’s settings and right‑click menu. There is no extension to install, and it works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The feature is still fairly new, so you may need to update Brave to the latest version if you don’t see it yet.

Why it matters

Cross‑site tracking is one of the most persistent privacy problems online. Even with tracker blockers, some data leakage happens through shared cookies or storage. Containers eliminate that by enforcing a strict separation between different parts of your browsing life.

Beyond privacy, containers solve a practical annoyance: managing multiple accounts on the same website. For example, you might have a work Google account and a personal one. Without containers, you need separate browser profiles or incognito windows to keep them from colliding. With containers, you can assign each account to its own container and switch between them with a simple right‑click.

Containers also help with workflow organization. You can colour‑code tabs: red for work, blue for personal, green for banking. At a glance, you know which context you’re in. And because each container keeps its own cookies, you won’t accidentally stay logged into a work service when you’re doing personal browsing.

What readers can do

Getting started with Brave containers takes only a few steps.

  1. Update Brave to version 1.70 or later. Go to brave://settings/help – it will check for updates automatically.

  2. Enable the container panel (optional but convenient).
    Open brave://settings/getStarted and look for “Show containers in sidebar” or similar wording. Toggle it on. This adds a small panel that lists all your containers.

  3. Create your first container.
    Right‑click any tab and select “Move to container” > “New container”. Give it a name (e.g., “Work”) and choose a colour. You can also create containers from the sidebar panel by clicking the “+” icon.

  4. Assign sites to a container.
    Once a container exists, you can right‑click any tab and move it there. Or, when you are on a site for the first time, you can choose which container to open it in. Brave will remember the association: if you set mail.google.com to always open in the “Work” container, it will stay there.

  5. Use containers for common scenarios.

    • Work vs. personal: Keep your office email and docs in one container, personal social media in another.
    • Shopping: Use a dedicated container for e‑commerce sites. Their trackers won’t follow you to other tabs.
    • Banking and finance: A separate container for bank and credit card sites adds extra isolation.
    • Social media: If you manage multiple accounts (e.g., a personal and a business Twitter), give each its own container. You can stay logged into both at once.

  6. Manage containers.
    To see all containers and their open tabs, click the container icon in the sidebar (if enabled) or go to brave://settings/containers. From there you can delete containers, change colours, or redistribute tabs.

    If you want to clear data from one container without affecting others, go to brave://settings/clearBrowserData, then under “Time range” choose “All time” and select “Cookies and other site data”. Important: This clears cookies for the entire browser, not per container. For container‑specific clearing, the cleanest method is to delete the container itself (which removes its associated data) or use the “Site and Shields Settings” panel to manually remove cookies for a particular container.

A note on differences from Firefox

Firefox has offered Multi‑Account Containers as an extension for years, and it remains a solid option. Brave’s version is built directly into the browser, which means it works immediately without an extension and is less likely to break with browser updates. Otherwise, the core functionality is very similar – both give each container an independent cookie store. Brave also allows you to set a default container for a site, similar to Firefox’s “Always open in this container” option.

Sources

  • The Futurum Group, “Brave’s Browser Containers Raise the Bar for Privacy and Workflow Flexibility” (July 2026) – covers the feature announcement and its implications.
  • Brave Software documentation (brave.com) – details on version 1.70 release notes and container functionality.
  • Mozilla’s Multi‑Account Containers extension page – background on how containers work in Firefox.