In this paper, we introduce two new types of approximation properties for étale groupoids, almost elementariness and (ubiquitous) fiberwise amenability, inspired by Matui's and Kerr's notions of almost finiteness. In fact, we show that, in their respective scopes of applicability, both notions of almost finiteness are equivalent to the conjunction of our two properties. Our new properties stem from viewing étale groupoids as coarse geometric objects in the spirit of geometric group theory. Fiberwise amenability is a coarse geometric property of étale groupoids that is closely related to the existence of invariant measures on unit spaces and corresponds to the amenability of the acting group in a transformation groupoid. Almost elementariness may be viewed as a better dynamical analogue of the regularity properties of C * -algebras than almost finiteness, since, unlike the latter, the former may also be applied to the purely infinite case. To support this analogy, we show almost elementary minimal groupoids give rise to tracially Z-stable reduced groupoid C * -algebras. In particular, the C * -algebras of minimal second countable amenable almost finite groupoids in Matui's sense are Z-stable. Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Preliminaries 8 3. Amenability of extended coarse spaces 11 4. Coarse geometry of étale groupoids 15 5. Fiberwise amenability 21 6. Almost elementary étale groupoids and groupoid strict comparison 30 7. Almost elementariness and almost finiteness 39 8. Small boundary property and a nesting form of almost elementariness 46 9. Tracial Z-stability 56 References 67This is one reason why we decided not to use the word "finite" in the name of our new notion, after a helpful suggestion of George Elliott to the second author.