Documentation | Tabs++

Introduction

Tabs++ is a high-performance productivity layer for Chrome. It treats your browser as a workspace, ensuring that your organization survives accidental closures, browser crashes, and resource exhaustion.

Designed for power users who rely on Pinned Tabs and Tab Groups as their primary state managers.

Protection Engine

The core of Tabs++ is the real-time protection engine. It monitors your vertical and horizontal tabs silently in the background.

How it works:

Pinned Tabs: Tabs++ locks pinned tabs. If you close one, it recreates the tab immediately and pins it back to its starting URL.
Protected Groups: Any tab inside a native Chrome Tab Group is considered "protected". If closed, it is restored back into its exact group and original position.
Enhanced Inheritance: New tabs opened from protected (pinned/grouped) tabs are automatically opened as standalone instances. This prevents your organized groups from being polluted by temporary navigation tabs.

Memory Baseline System: Tabs++ tracks the "ground truth" of your workspace in a high-speed background map. This ensures that even after a browser update or crash, your critical tabs return to their exact state.

Atomic Restoration: Position integrity is maintained even during complex batch-move operations. To prevent infinite loops and race conditions, the engine uses an Eviction Graveyard to track tabs in the process of being restored.

Session Vault

While the protection engine handles real-time accidents, the Vault handles system-level failures.

Tabs++ takes periodic snapshots of your entire workspace state. If Chrome fails to restore your sessions on startup, you can summon the Vault to revive everything.

> Revive Vault

The Vault stores URLs, titles, group colors, and window assignments locally using chrome.storage.local.

Auto-Grouping

Tabs++ includes a background intelligence engine that automatically organizes high-frequency domains into themed groups as you browse.

Thematic Rules:

AI: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and all .ai domains.
Dev: GitHub, GitLab, StackOverflow, AWS, Vercel, Docker.
Design: Figma, Canva, Dribbble, Adobe, Spline.
Social: X (Twitter), Reddit, LinkedIn, Discord.
Media: YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Twitch.
News: NYT, BBC, TechCrunch, Verge, Wikipedia.

Auto-Archive

To prevent tab sprawl, Tabs++ monitors unprotected (non-pinned, non-grouped) tabs. Any unprotected tab that hasn't been accessed for 12 hours is automatically closed to keep your workspace lean.

Protected tabs are never archived.

Tab Hibernation

Modern browsers consume gigabytes of RAM. Tabs++ solves this by forcing all restored tabs into a "Discarded" (hibernated) state 1 second after they appear.

Restored tabs use zero CPU and zero RAM until you actually click to focus them. This allows you to maintain massive workspaces of 100+ tabs without system slowdown.

Command Palette

Access your entire browser state via Ctrl + Shift + K (Win/Linux) or Cmd + Shift + K (Mac).

Search Open Tabs instantly.
Search Bookmarks and History.
Fuzzy matching allows for fast navigation without precise typing.

Action Engine (>)

The palette is more than a search bar. Type the > prefix to trigger powerful system actions. You can also use dynamic commands like > summon [set name] or > launch [group name].

Organization

Command	Description
`> Tidy`	Cluster loose tabs into groups by domain.
`> Ungroup All`	Flatten all group structures in the window.
`> Dedupe`	Close duplicate tabs (prefers active/recent).
`> Gather Standalone`	Pull all non-grouped tabs into a new window.
`> Consolidate Domain`	Pull all tabs of the current domain from other windows.
`> Extract Group`	Move current group into its own window.

Tab Sets

Command	Description
`> Save Workspace`	Save all protected tabs in the window as a Set.
`> Save Group`	Save the active group as a Set.
`> Stash Group`	Save the active group and close its tabs immediately.
`> Export Sets`	Download your saved Sets as a JSON file.
`> summon [term]`	Search and pull an existing Set or Group into your window.
`> launch [term]`	Open a saved Set in a fresh window.

Performance & Focus

Command	Description
`> Hibernate All`	Instantly flush RAM for all background tabs.
`> Hibernate Window`	Sleep all background tabs in the local window.
`> Pause Media`	Global kill-switch for all video/audio elements.
`> Mute Background`	Silence all tabs except the active one.
`> Zen Fullscreen`	Enter distraction-free mode.

Deep System Links

Tabs++ maps dozens of internal Chrome paths to easy keywords:

> flags (Experiments)
> gpu (Hardware Accel)
> performance (Memory Saver)
> privacy (Security Hub)
> passwords (Manager)
> permissions (Mic/Cam)
> ad privacy (Ads)
> appearance (Themes)
> extensions (Plugins)

Search Bangs (!)

Skip the middleman. Search external sites directly from the palette using ! bangs.

General
!g (Google)
!ddg (DuckDuckGo)
!w (Wikipedia)
!maps (Google Maps)
!img (Google Images)
!a (Amazon)
!r (Reddit)
!x (Twitter/X)

Development
!gh (GitHub)
!so (StackOverflow)
!mdn (Mozilla Devs)
!npm (npm Registry)

Design & AI
!fig (Figma)
!can (Canva)
!pin (Pinterest)
!gpt (ChatGPT)
!px (Perplexity)

Popup Menu

The extension popup, accessible via the toolbar icon, is your quick-access control center for workspace settings.

Protection Toggles: Instantly enable or disable the "Survival Engine" for Pinned Tabs or Groups.
About & Support: The new About tab provides direct access to version data, the official website, and GitHub issue tracking.

Smart URL Updates

The Update Pinned URL command is context-aware. If used on video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or Twitch, it automatically injects the current timestamp (e.g., ?t=120s) into the baseline.

When the tab is restored (after closure or crash), it will revive exactly at the moment you last "saved" it.

Focus Guard

Focus Guard prevents new tabs from accidentally "inheriting" the protected state of their parent. If you open a link from a Grouped or Pinned tab, Tabs++ ensures the result is a standalone tab, keeping your core workspace clean.

If you close an active tab, Focus Guard optionally redirects focus to a clean New Tab Page instead of jumping to the nearest protected content.

Transient Peek

Explore links without bloating your workspace. Shift + Click any link to open it in a transient popup window.

If the content is useful, click the Promote to Workspace button in the bottom-right corner to move it back into your main browser window.

Zen Dashboard

Tabs++ replaces the cluttered standard New Tab Page with a minimalist dashboard. It features a clock, date, and a lightning-fast version of the global search palette.

Persistence Fix: The dashboard search input now automatically clears after use or navigation, ensuring a clean slate every time you open a new tab.

FAQ

How do I rebind the keys?

Chrome controls all extension shortcuts via chrome://extensions/shortcuts. Visit that page to customize your hotkeys.

Is my history synced?

No. Tabs++ prioritizes privacy. All data is stored locally on your machine and never synced to external servers.

Technical Architecture

                    Manifest: v3 (Service Worker)

                    Logic Flow: Event-driven triggers for chrome.tabs.onCreated, onUpdated, and onRemoved.

                    Atomic Persistence: State managed via memoryBaselines Map synced to chrome.storage.local.

                    Restoration Buffer: evictionGraveyard prevents race conditions during multi-tab revivals.

                    Security: All search suggestion logic uses HTTPS (Google Suggest API). No personal data leaves the machine.