tabs

Interact with the browser's tab system.

You can use this API to get a list of opened tabs, filtered by various criteria, and to open, update, move, reload, and remove tabs. You can't directly access the content hosted by tabs using this API, but you can insert JavaScript and CSS into tabs using the tabs.executeScript() or tabs.insertCSS() APIs.

You can use most of this API without any special permission. However:

Alternatively, you can get these permissions temporarily, only for the currently active tab and only in response to an explicit user action, by asking for the "activeTab" permission.

Types

tabs.MutedInfoReason
Specifies the reason a tab was muted or unmuted.
tabs.MutedInfo
This object contains a boolean indicating whether the tab is muted, and the reason for the last state change.
tabs.Tab
This type contains information about a tab.
tabs.TabStatus
Indicates whether the tab has finished loading.
tabs.WindowType
The type of window that hosts this tab.
tabs.ZoomSettingsMode
Defines whether zoom changes are handled by the browser, by the extension, or are disabled.
tabs.ZoomSettingsScope
Defines whether zoom changes will persist for the page's origin, or only take effect in this tab.
tabs.ZoomSettings
Defines zoom settings modescope, and default zoom factor.

Properties

tabs.TAB_ID_NONE
A special ID value given to tabs that are not browser tabs (for example, tabs in devtools windows).

Functions

tabs.connect()
Sets up a messaging connection between the extension's background scripts (or other privileged scripts, such as popup scripts or options page scripts) and any content scripts running in the specified tab.
tabs.create()
Creates a new tab.
tabs.captureVisibleTab()
Creates a data URI encoding an image of the visible area of the currently active tab in the specified window.
tabs.detectLanguage()
Detects the primary language of the content in a tab.
tabs.duplicate()
Duplicates a tab.
tabs.executeScript()
Injects JavaScript code into a page.
tabs.get()
Retrieves details about the specified tab.
tabs.getAllInWindow()
Gets details about all tabs in the specified window.
tabs.getCurrent()
Gets information about the tab that this script is running in, as a tabs.Tab object.
tabs.getSelected()
Gets the tab that is selected in the specified window.
tabs.getZoom()
Gets the current zoom factor of the specified tab.
tabs.getZoomSettings()
Gets the current zoom settings for the specified tab.
tabs.highlight()
Highlights one or more tabs.
tabs.insertCSS()
Injects CSS into a page.
tabs.removeCSS()
Removes from a page CSS which was previously injected by calling tabs.insertCSS().
tabs.move()
Moves one or more tabs to a new position in the same window or to a different window.
tabs.query()
Gets all tabs that have the specified properties, or all tabs if no properties are specified.
tabs.reload()
Reload a tab, optionally bypassing the local web cache.
tabs.remove()
Closes one or more tabs.
tabs.sendMessage()
Sends a single message to the content script(s) in the specified tab.
tabs.sendRequest()
Sends a single request to the content script(s) in the specified tab. Deprecated: use tabs.sendMessage() instead.
tabs.setZoom()
Zooms the specified tab.
tabs.setZoomSettings()
Sets the zoom settings for the specified tab.
tabs.update()
Navigate the tab to a new URL, or modify other properties of the tab.

Events

tabs.onActivated
Fires when the active tab in a window changes. Note that the tab's URL may not be set at the time this event fired.
tabs.onActiveChanged
Fires when the selected tab in a window changes. Deprecated: use tabs.onActivated instead.
tabs.onAttached
Fired when a tab is attached to a window, for example because it was moved between windows.
tabs.onCreated
Fired when a tab is created. Note that the tab's URL may not be set at the time this event fired.
tabs.onDetached
Fired when a tab is detached from a window, for example because it is being moved between windows.
tabs.onHighlightChanged
Fired when the highlighted or selected tabs in a window change. Deprecated: use tabs.onHighlighted instead.
tabs.onHighlighted
Fired when the highlighted or selected tabs in a window change.
tabs.onMoved
Fired when a tab is moved within a window.
tabs.onRemoved
Fired when a tab is closed.
tabs.onReplaced
Fired when a tab is replaced with another tab due to prerendering.
tabs.onSelectionChanged
Fires when the selected tab in a window changes. Deprecated: use tabs.onActivated instead.
tabs.onUpdated
Fired when a tab is updated.
tabs.onZoomChange
Fired when a tab is zoomed.

Browser compatibility

ChromeEdgeFirefoxFirefox for AndroidOpera
MutedInfoYesNo47NoYes
MutedInfoReasonYesNo47NoYes
TAB_ID_NONEYesYes4554Yes
TabYes *Yes *45 *54 *Yes *
TabStatusYesYes4554Yes
WindowTypeYesYes4554Yes
ZoomSettingsYesNo45NoYes
ZoomSettingsModeYesNo45NoYes
ZoomSettingsScopeYesNo45NoYes
captureVisibleTabYes154754Yes
connectYes *No4554Yes *
createYes *Yes *45 *54 *Yes *
detectLanguageYesYes45NoYes
duplicateYesNo4754Yes
executeScriptYes *Yes *43 *54 *Yes *
getYesYes4554Yes
getAllInWindowYesNo4554No
getCurrentYesYes4554Yes
getSelectedYesNoNoNoNo
getZoomYesNo45NoYes
getZoomSettingsYesNo45NoYes
highlightYesNoNoNoNo
insertCSSYes *Yes *47 *54 *Yes *
moveYesNo46NoYes
onActivatedYesYes4554Yes
onActiveChangedYesNoNoNoNo
onAttachedYes154554Yes
onCreatedYesYes4554Yes
onDetachedYes154554Yes
onHighlightChangedYesNoNoNoNo
onHighlightedYesNo4554No
onMovedYesNo45NoYes
onRemovedYesYes4554Yes
onReplacedYesNo45 *54 *Yes
onSelectionChangedYesNoNoNoNo
onUpdatedYesYes45 *54Yes
onZoomChangeYesNo45NoYes
queryYes *Yes *45 *54 *Yes *
reloadYesNo4554Yes
removeYesYes4554Yes
removeCSSNoNo4954No
sendMessageYes *Yes *4554Yes *
sendRequestYesNoNoNoNo
setZoomYesNo45NoYes
setZoomSettingsYesNo45NoYes
updateYes *Yes *45 *54 *Yes *

Edge incompatibilities

Promises are not supported in Edge. Use callbacks instead.

Chrome incompatibilities

tabs

  • In Firefox, relative URLs passed into tabs.executeScript() or tabs.insertCSS() are resolved relative to the current page URL. In Chrome, these URLs are resolved relative to the extension's base URL. To work cross-browser, you can specify the path as an absolute URL, starting at the extension's root, like this:

    /path/to/script.js
  • In Firefox, querying tabs by URL with tabs.query() requires "tabs" permission. In Chrome, it's possible without the "tabs" permission but will limit results to tabs whose URLs match host permissions.

Example extensions

Acknowledgements

This API is based on Chromium's chrome.tabs API. This documentation is derived from tabs.json in the Chromium code.

Microsoft Edge compatibility data is supplied by Microsoft Corporation and is included here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: andrewtruongmoz, abbycar, wbamberg, idupree, Sheppy, Jeremie, kmaglione
 Last updated by: andrewtruongmoz,