Tab Wrangler

A Chrome & Firefox extension that automatically closes tabs you haven't used in a while so you can focus on the tabs that matter

• Installation
• Features
• Usage
  • Tab Corral
  • Tab Lock
  • Options Tab
    • All Saved Settings
    • Back up & Restore
• Privacy Policy
  • Explanation of Requested Permissions
• Contributing
  • Translation
  • Development

• Tab Wrangler for Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tab-wrangler/egnjhciaieeiiohknchakcodbpgjnchh
• Tab Wrangler for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabwrangler/

• Automatic tab closing: Tabs you haven't visited in a while (1 hour by default) are automatically closed, keeping your browser fast and uncluttered.
• The Tab Corral: Every tab Tab Wrangler closes is saved to the Tab Corral — a searchable, sortable list inside the extension. You can browse closed tabs by title or URL and restore any of them with a single click.
• Full session restore: Tabs marked with a 🌿 icon in the Corral can be restored with their full browsing history and scroll position intact, so the back button still works after you reopen them. (Limited to the most recent 25 closed tabs by the browser.)
• Tab Lock: Lock individual tabs to prevent them from being auto-closed. You can also lock entire browser windows at once. Locked tabs stay open no matter how long they've been inactive.
• Exclude list: Add a website address or domain to the exclude list and Tab Wrangler will never close tabs from that site. For example, adding mail.google.com keeps your Gmail tab open indefinitely.
• Audio & Tab Group protection: Optionally keep tabs that are playing audio, or tabs that belong to a tab group, from being auto-closed.
• Minimum open tabs: Set a floor — Tab Wrangler won't close any tabs if you have fewer than this number open, either per window or across all windows combined.
• Right-click menu: Right-click on any webpage to instantly send that tab to the Corral, lock the tab, or lock all tabs from that domain — without opening the extension popup.
• Pause and resume: Temporarily stop all auto-closing with one click, then resume when you're ready.
• Pinned and active tabs are always safe: The tab you're looking at right now and any pinned tabs are never auto-closed.
• Synced settings: Your Tab Wrangler preferences sync automatically across all browsers where you're signed in.

Click the Tab Wrangler icon next to the address bar to open the popup. It has three tabs:

The Tab Corral is your saved list of every tab Tab Wrangler has automatically closed.

• Restore a tab: Click any row to reopen that tab. Tabs marked with a 🌿 icon will restore with their full browsing history (back/forward buttons) and scroll position.
• Search: Use the search box to filter tabs by title or URL.
• Sort: Sort the list by close time, page title, domain name, or time the tab was open.
• Remove: Delete individual saved tabs from the list, or clear the entire Tab Corral at once.
• Statistics: The header shows how many tabs Tab Wrangler has closed in total.

The Tab Lock view shows all of your currently open tabs and lets you control which ones Tab Wrangler is allowed to close.

• Countdown timer: Each tab shows the time remaining before Tab Wrangler will close it. Once the timer reaches zero Tab Wrangler will close the tab as soon as it can. Focusing a tab resets its timer.
• Lock a tab: Click the lock icon on any tab row to lock that tab. Locked tabs show a reason (e.g. "Locked", "Pinned", "Grouped") instead of a countdown.
• Lock a window: Use the lock button in a window's header to lock all current and future tabs in that window.
• Minimum tabs indicator: The badge in each window header (or at the top of the list) shows how many tabs are open versus your configured minimum. A yellow badge means Tab Wrangler is holding off on closing tabs because the minimum hasn't been reached yet.
• Pause: The extension can be paused from the popup header, stopping all countdowns and auto-closing until you resume it.
• Sort: Sort open tabs by time remaining, tab order, or title.

The Options tab lets you configure how Tab Wrangler behaves.

• Inactive time: How long a tab must be untouched before Tab Wrangler will close it. Set this in days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
• Minimum tabs: The minimum number of tabs that must be open before Tab Wrangler starts closing anything. Choose whether this minimum applies to each window individually or to all windows combined.
• Exclude list: Add website addresses or domains that should never be auto-closed.
• Tabs playing audio: Choose whether to protect tabs that are playing audio from being closed.
• Tab Groups: Choose whether to protect tabs inside a tab group from being closed.
• Closed tabs storage: Set the maximum number of closed tabs to keep in the Corral, and choose whether the list is cleared when you close your browser.
• Duplicate tabs: Control how Tab Wrangler handles saving a tab whose URL is already in the Corral.
• Appearance: Choose between light, dark, or system-matched theme for Tab Wrangler.
• Icon badge: Optionally show a count of saved tabs on the extension icon.
• Keyboard shortcuts: Configure keyboard shortcuts for common Tab Wrangler actions.
• Import / Export: Back up your saved tabs list and settings to a file, or restore from a previous backup.

Tab Wrangler's settings are saved and synced by your browser, like Chrome sync for example, to all of your logged in browser sessions if you have sync enabled. Their possible values and their usages are described in the following table:

The upper bound of maxTabs is determined by the browser's storage quota and can vary. Tab Wrangler will display an error message if the setting is adjusted above what is allowed by the browser.

You can back up your list of closed tabs as well as the number of tabs Tab Wrangler has closed by using the import/export functionality in the Settings tab.

1. Open Tab Wrangler
2. Switch to the Settings tab
3. Scroll to Import / Export
4. Click Export

If you previously backed up / exported your list of tabs, follow these steps to restore the list in Tab Wrangler. Note: this will overwrite Tab Wrangler's tabs list; ensure you are not overwriting tabs that you wanted to save.

1. Open Tab Wrangler
2. Switch to the Settings tab
3. Scroll to Import / Export
4. Click Import
5. Select the file created during back up, it will be named similarly to "TabWranglerExport-6-18-2017.json"

The "Back up / Export" button creates a JSON file with saved tabs and other usage data. The JSON file has the following format:

/**
 * The `chrome.tabs.Tab` type comes from `@types/chrome`
 * @see https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/d693ab3ced5aa2b8d86838f721006b16414bb21e/types/chrome/index.d.ts#L9406
 */
type TabWranglerExportFormat = {
  savedTabs: Array<chrome.tabs.Tab>,
  totalTabsRemoved: number,
  totalTabsUnwrangled: number,
  totalTabsWrangled: number
};

Tab Wrangler does not transmit any data about you or your usage of Tab Wrangler. There is no tracking, there are no analytics, and there are no advertisements.

Tab Wrangler does not have nor does it request the ability to read information on the web pages that you visit. Tab Wrangler is able to read the title and current location (the URL) of your tabs but not the content inside those tabs.

Tab Wrangler's requested permissions are listed in its manifest.json under the "permissions" key.

• "alarms": Allows creating alarms to periodically check Tab Wrangler's background script that checks for stale tabs is running and healthy.
• "contextMenus": Allows a "Tab Wrangler" menu item when you right click on a webpage that lets you send the tab to the Tab Corral, lock that tab, or lock all tabs on that domain.
• "favicons": (Chrome only) Allows access to local favicon images of current and past tabs. This prevents having to make a network request to fetch a tab's favicon, improving privacy and offline capability.
• "sessions": Allows reading and restoring the full history of tabs including enabling the back/forward buttons and your scroll position on those pages.
• "storage": Allows syncing your Tab Wrangler settings with your browser account and enables saving your closed tabs to your local computer. Note: closed tabs are not synced because the "sync" storage area has only a small amount of storage.
• "tabGroups": Allows creating tab groups and reading their details, like their color, to show matching tab group colors in Tab Wrangler's own interface.
• "tabs": Allows reading the title and location of any current tabs as well as closing those tabs and opening new tabs. This permission does not enable Tab Wrangler to read information on web pages that you visit.

Tab Wrangler's Crowdin Project: the place to contribute and view translations

Tab Wrangler is available in other languages thanks to generous translation help. Any help translating Tab Wrangler is greatly appreciated and can be done via Crowdin. Contributors include the following:

🇨🇳 Chinese (Simplified) by yfdyh000, 🇹🇼 Chinese (Traditional) by ingrid123 and xbddc.ho, 🇫🇷 French by orpheuslummis and bkazez, 🇩🇪 German by johannesfischer, 🇭🇺 Hungarian by kottalovag, 🇮🇩 Indonesian by azhe403, 🇰🇷 Korean by x_nuk, 🇱🇻 Latvian by coool, 🇵🇱 Polish by imjusttony, 🇧🇷 Portuguese, Brazilian by RavenaStar, 🇷🇺 Russian by sdir01 and coool, 🇪🇸 Spanish by julianjaramillo, Tamil by dineshr, 🇺🇦 Ukrainian by DepsCian

Pull requests for bug fixes and features are more than welcome. Please check out the "Developing" section of the CONTRIBUTING doc to see how to get started. Once your code is working and tested, submit a pull request to this primary project and we'll get going.

• Modernized and maintained by ssorallen since 2017
• Rewritten by JacobSingh in 2012
• Original extension and idea by jacktasia in 2010