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A tab manager for Chrome: park your open tabs into lists, organise the lists into folders and groups, find anything by typing, and restore it later — with your choice of sync backend and end-to-end encryption.
Download tabnest-<version>.zip from the
latest release and load it
unpacked, or build it from source.
Adoption of any tab manager is gated by where it keeps your data. Most give you a choice between one vendor's cloud and nothing at all. TabNest treats storage as a pluggable backend:
- Chrome sync storage — zero setup, inside your own Google account.
- WebDAV — Nextcloud, Synology, 坚果云, or any folder on a server you own.
- Custom HTTP endpoint — seven routes; a ~100-line reference server ships in
server/and runs on a Cloudflare Worker or a spare machine. - GitHub Gist — a private gist, with a token you provide.
Each device only ever writes its own key prefix, so no backend needs locking, compare-and-swap, or a database: a plain folder is enough. Conflicts resolve to the newest record, and a deletion is remembered for 90 days so an offline device cannot resurrect it.
Payloads for every external backend are sealed with AES-GCM under a key derived from your passphrase (PBKDF2-SHA256); each chunk's position is bound into the AAD, so a chunk cannot be moved, duplicated or reordered without failing to decrypt. The storage operator sees sizes and timestamps, not titles or URLs.
Parking. Eight scopes — this window, this tab group, your highlighted tabs, the current tab, everything except it, tabs to the left, tabs to the right, all windows — reachable from the toolbar menu, the popup, a right-click, or a keyboard command. The tabs close; the records stay.
Organising. Folders, window groups and nested Chrome tab groups, plus a quick list, an archive and a trash. Rename a list from its heading or its sidebar entry (click the name, or F2). Delete one from either place and it goes to the trash with its contents; restoring puts it back where it came from.
Finding. Search across titles, URLs, hosts and notes, over a virtualised list that stays responsive with thousands of records. Multi-select, drag and drop, inline editing, notes and star ratings.
Moving data. Import a URL list, JSON, your bookmarks, or your Chrome reading list. Export a versioned JSON file or a self-contained HTML page — no server involved.
Small things that matter. Per-site "never park this host" switch in the menu; a recent-lists submenu that deep-links into the library; a help page that reads your live shortcuts; light and dark themes; English and Chinese.
| Backend | Setup | Capacity | Encryption |
|---|---|---|---|
chrome-sync (default) |
none — your Chrome profile | ~100 KB | off (already in your account) |
webdav |
URL + credentials (Nextcloud, Synology, 坚果云) | your quota | on |
http |
any endpoint implementing seven routes | yours | on |
gist |
a GitHub token | 1 MB/file | on |
chrome.storage.sync holds about 100 KB — roughly 1500–2500 tabs. Past that the
engine pauses and tells you why; it never truncates silently. For bigger
libraries, point it at WebDAV or your own endpoint.
It also needs a signed-in profile. chrome.storage.sync is Chrome Sync's
extension-data channel, not a Drive folder: it replicates only when the browser
is signed in to a Google account with sync on. Signed out, Chrome's own
documentation says the area "behaves like storage.local" — every write
succeeds, the data stays in that machine's profile, and nothing is uploaded.
That failure is silent, because the API returns success either way and no
extension can query sync state without asking for your email address. Two
devices are the only proof. See
docs/backends.md for the
on-disk location and the full list of preconditions.
The protocol, the conflict rules and the quota guard are in docs/sync-design.md; the endpoint contract, with curl examples and a Cloudflare Worker, is in docs/backends.md.
Download tabnest-<version>.zip from the
latest release, unzip it,
then open chrome://extensions, enable Developer mode, choose Load unpacked
and pick the unzipped folder. Chrome 120 or newer.
pnpm install
pnpm build # -> dist/Load dist/ the same way. If you change the code, click the reload button on the
extension card.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
pnpm dev |
rebuild on change (reload the extension to pick it up) |
pnpm typecheck |
tsc --noEmit |
pnpm lint |
Biome, formatting and lint in one pass |
pnpm test |
178 unit tests: data layer, sync codec, crypto, conflict matrix… |
pnpm smoke |
loads dist/ in Chromium: parking, rename, delete, 5 000-record scale, chrome.storage.sync |
pnpm e2e:sync |
two Chromium profiles syncing through the reference server |
pnpm a11y |
axe-core over every surface; zero violations is the bar |
pnpm shots |
regenerate docs/screenshots from the real build |
pnpm zip |
store-ready archive |
pnpm smoke and pnpm e2e:sync need a Playwright Chromium
(npx playwright install chromium).
pages/ HTML entry points (library, popup, options, sync, import, help)
src/background/ service worker: capture, routing, action menu, sync engine
src/data/ IndexedDB schema, repository, URL canonicalisation
src/ui/ React surfaces, shared components, design tokens, i18n
scripts/ build, manifest, icons, smoke, e2e, a11y, screenshots
server/ reference sync server (Cloudflare Worker + Node)
docs/ architecture, sync protocol, backend contract, privacy, listing
test/ unit (vitest) and end-to-end (playwright)
A few design notes worth knowing before changing things:
- The service worker is the only writer; pages read through it and refresh on a
data-changedbroadcast. - Every mutation appends to a journal inside the same transaction, so the sync engine never has to diff snapshots.
- A tab's id is
base64url(SHA-256(canonicalUrl))sliced to 22 characters, which makes dedupe and cross-device convergence fall out of the address itself.
More in docs/architecture.md.
| Permission | Reason |
|---|---|
tabs |
reading the URLs and titles of the tabs you park — the product |
storage, unlimitedStorage |
the library, and chrome.storage.sync when chosen |
activeTab, scripting |
a link's label, only when you use the context menu |
contextMenus, commands, alarms |
the menu, shortcuts, scheduled maintenance |
favicon |
local site icons, so no third party learns your URLs |
tabGroups, bookmarks, readingList |
optional, requested when you enable those features |
https://*/*, http://*/* |
optional, requested for a sync endpoint you type in |
No analytics, no account, no remote code. docs/privacy.md describes every byte that leaves the machine.
The captures come from pnpm shots, which seeds sample data — no real browsing
session is photographed.
| Dark theme | Settings |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Import and export | The Chinese interface |
 |
 |
- architecture — data model, capture rules, decisions
- sync design — protocol, conflicts, quotas, encryption
- backend contract — the seven routes, and how to serve them
- migration — bringing a library over from another tool
- privacy · policy
- roadmap · review checklist · store listing
- changelog
MIT — see LICENSE.
TabNest is an independent, clean-room implementation. It contains no code, assets or UI copy from any other extension; NOTICE.md records the provenance, and the only import path from another tool is a file you already own.