Description from extension meta
Makes switching between tabs more convenient.
Image from store
Description from store
The extension shows you a popup with last active tabs when you press its shortcut (Alt + Y by default). You cycle through them by holding Alt and pressing Y. By releasing the Alt key you switch to the chosen tab. This is like switching between apps in Windows (Alt + Tab) and in macOS (Cmd + Tab).
Also, when you close an active tab, you will be placed to the previously active one. It is more helpful than the default Chrome's behaviour, which activates the nearest tab.
You can delegate default switching between tabs by pressing Ctrl + Tab to the extension, see how https://github.com/dvdvdmt/popup-tab-switcher#replace-default-tab-switching-behaviour
NOTE: The extension tries to render its popup on the page wherever it is possible, but there are cases where it can't do that:
* Chrome's web store pages. The extension doesn't work here.
* Special Chrome tabs such as Settings, New tab, History, etc. In this case the extension tries to switch a user from a special tab to a previous tab without showing a popup.
* The page has no focus (a user searches on the page, focused on address bar, etc.). In this case the extension shows its popup and starts a timer by the end of which it will switch a user to the selected tab.
* Files pages (URL starts with file:///). The extension can't work on such pages without a special permission which you can turn on in Extensions > Popup Tab Switcher (Details) > Allow access to file URLs.
Source code on GitHub https://github.com/dvdvdmt/popup-tab-switcher
Latest reviews
- (2025-06-11) Ammar Mohamed: exactly what I was looking for!
- (2025-05-08) jones cutemba: This is pure gold! Changing Hotkey would be a nice functionality :)
- (2025-05-01) Dan W: Great app, I wish I could change the hot key to use it in the settings
- (2025-03-22) Yurii Telishchak: great tool! I was looking for such for so long time
- (2025-02-21) Leonid Brodski: Switching before recent tabs - is what I've missed in Chrome and why I preferred to use Firefox. This extension fully closes this drawback. It is fully customizable and so I have what I like.
- (2025-02-10) Eliahu Aaron: Works great! as Rok Sostaric wrote, go to "chrome://extensions/shortcuts" to change default shortcut.
- (2024-12-07) Carlin Li: Works great to switch tabs but unfortunately it also activates when closing tabs. Likely won't continue using this extension since it messes up the close tab behavior.
- (2024-10-30) Arnau Via Martínez-seara: This is a very useful feature I can't live without. I think this should be a native feature. The extension work exactly as expected. I understand this is a free extension and I really appreciate it but the UI is a bit dated. Thank you
- (2024-10-17) Travis W: I like this lot when it works however there is a bug somewhere in this where when enabled it allows chrome to bring a different window in the background to the forefront/active window when you close a tab or close a pop up window, have had to disable this extension for the time being as this is massively annoying.
- (2024-09-19) Rok Sostaric: Does what it says (show tab groups in the popup would be nice). Default key shortcut is not great for one hand. You can change it by going to chrome://extensions/shortcuts
- (2024-08-09) Beth Welsh: Doesn't include grouped tabs in Chrome
- (2024-08-09) Roy Liao: This is the best one and must have! Tried the other one does not work great. This also works on Chrome pages and Chrome store page. From those details we can tell the developer pays attention to details!!
- (2024-05-19) motaz allala: I love it thanks man good job 👍
- (2024-03-10) Tolgay Toklar: It doesn't work well with tab groups
- (2024-03-06) Jack Ge: one thing to complain for a person with ordinary left hand...can we change to a different shortcut? alt+Y is against humanity a little...
- (2024-02-21) Elyasaf Aloni: Great app! It's also open source, making it more trustworthy! 5/5
- (2024-02-05) Simon Shkilevich: Good, but when closing a tab it switches to the previous opened tab, not convenient when you want to to close a lot of old tabs in a row
- (2023-09-29) Foot: This is awesome. Open previously active tab is so useful.
- (2023-09-29) Foot: This is awesome. Open previously active tab is so useful.
- (2023-09-02) Vladimir Sedlar: All in all the extension is great. It does what it intends to do perfectly and greatly improves my experience using chrome. The only thing missing is the ability to remap the trigger key.
- (2023-09-02) Vladimir Sedlar: All in all the extension is great. It does what it intends to do perfectly and greatly improves my experience using chrome. The only thing missing is the ability to remap the trigger key.
- (2023-08-14) Jason Pollock: I've been looking for this functionality forever. The only thing keeping me from moving to Brave full time.
- (2023-08-14) Jason Pollock: I've been looking for this functionality forever. The only thing keeping me from moving to Brave full time.
- (2023-07-17) m m: Great extension but I have 1 issue / question , if the maximum number of tabs is 5 for example and I press alt+y , it goes down to the next option and then the next one again until it loops again after 5 clicks Can it go to the 6th tab if I click again? thanks in advance :)
- (2023-07-17) m m: Great extension but I have 1 issue / question , if the maximum number of tabs is 5 for example and I press alt+y , it goes down to the next option and then the next one again until it loops again after 5 clicks Can it go to the 6th tab if I click again? thanks in advance :)
- (2023-05-19) jiri vesely: OMG it really works now! Brilliant!!! Chrome devs can't even implement cycling recent tabs by 2023... This addon is miracle! Who made this is genius!!! Chrome such anti user $@!# I don't understand how anyone can even do anything, there is still no really good addons for managing tabs and stuff like that, only barely starting to come up... Like if it was something niche, but this is really basic like you would expect browsers to have that... There are even studies about tab overload... browsers UI didn't change basically since 1999... Chrome devs IQ -100, this addon dev IQ 145!!! I don't know honestly what i would do without this addon, if you are researching tons of stuff, it is easily generate lots of tabs, ability to switch to recent tabs is invaluable. I would increase count to like 10, or custom amount chosen by user, but 6 is something i can definitely work with. Praise to you, glory to you! Really can't thank you enough for this! Hopefully it won't stop working at some point etc. Geez that is really terrifying thought!!! Don't recommend changing default hotkeys or messing with anything, all those addons were really buggy, i am just so glad it works :)
- (2023-05-19) jiri vesely: OMG it really works now! Brilliant!!! Chrome devs can't even implement cycling recent tabs by 2023... This addon is miracle! Who made this is genius!!! Chrome such anti user $@!# I don't understand how anyone can even do anything, there is still no really good addons for managing tabs and stuff like that, only barely starting to come up... Like if it was something niche, but this is really basic like you would expect browsers to have that... There are even studies about tab overload... browsers UI didn't change basically since 1999... Chrome devs IQ -100, this addon dev IQ 145!!! I don't know honestly what i would do without this addon, if you are researching tons of stuff, it is easily generate lots of tabs, ability to switch to recent tabs is invaluable. I would increase count to like 10, or custom amount chosen by user, but 6 is something i can definitely work with. Praise to you, glory to you! Really can't thank you enough for this! Hopefully it won't stop working at some point etc. Geez that is really terrifying thought!!! Don't recommend changing default hotkeys or messing with anything, all those addons were really buggy, i am just so glad it works :)
- (2023-03-14) Alex Chen: Perfect for keyboard shortcut I set the keyboard shortcut to cmd + 1 on my mac, and now I can hold down cmd key and keep pressing 1 to switch to whatever tabs I want, cmd + tab style. This is perfect.
- (2023-03-14) Alex Chen: Perfect for keyboard shortcut I set the keyboard shortcut to cmd + 1 on my mac, and now I can hold down cmd key and keep pressing 1 to switch to whatever tabs I want, cmd + tab style. This is perfect.
- (2023-01-24) Peanut: chrome run on two desktops. A sorting bug occurs. This makes this extension unusable.
- (2023-01-24) Peanut: chrome run on two desktops. A sorting bug occurs. This makes this extension unusable.
- (2023-01-20) Steve Vranyes: looks great. nicely customizable. fast. used all the time.
- (2023-01-20) Steve Vranyes: looks great. nicely customizable. fast. used all the time.
- (2023-01-13) Peter Hung: best out there (2023)
- (2023-01-13) Peter Hung: best out there (2023)
- (2022-11-14) Tâm Huỳnh: okay
- (2022-11-14) Tâm Huỳnh: okay
- (2022-10-22) Daniel: It is useful and it will help me. However, it would have been much more useful if we were able to go cycle front and back in the list. The would be an extremely easy to implement. I just wonder why it wasn't already featured..
- (2022-10-22) Daniel: It is useful and it will help me. However, it would have been much more useful if we were able to go cycle front and back in the list. The would be an extremely easy to implement. I just wonder why it wasn't already featured..
- (2022-09-15) Javier Juarez: Muy buena extensión para cambiar de pestañas. Gracias.
- (2022-08-31) Jess Gold: It's good, mostly. However, I try to change the settings, but they're always reverted back to default after I close the settings pop up. Not so great. Would appreciate it if you could fix this issue, the auto switch timeout feature is really annoying. Thanks
- (2022-08-31) Jess Gold: It's good, mostly. However, I try to change the settings, but they're always reverted back to default after I close the settings pop up. Not so great. Would appreciate it if you could fix this issue, the auto switch timeout feature is really annoying. Thanks
- (2022-08-10) Alex Chen: Best tab switcher ever, I'm a power user and it has everything I need
- (2022-08-10) Alex Chen: Best tab switcher ever, I'm a power user and it has everything I need
- (2022-06-29) Thongchai Sirichanphan: Good Job!!!
- (2022-06-29) Thongchai Sirichanphan: Good Job!!!
- (2022-06-28) Jian: works as intended
- (2022-06-28) Jian: works as intended
- (2022-06-25) Rodrigo Bastos: Amazing, it's such a shame Chrome team doesn't implement it.
- (2022-06-25) Rodrigo Bastos: Amazing, it's such a shame Chrome team doesn't implement it.