Reduce tab clutter - prevent duplicate tabs, quickly search & switch tabs, and more...
** Automatically detect and close duplicate tabs
Preventing and closing duplicates tabs is the core mission. The extension runs in the background, checking when tabs are opened or links are clicked to see whether the target webpage is already open. If open, the extension switches focus to the existing tab, instead of opening a duplicate.
NEW: Quick Tab Search - search, switch to and close tabs. (Similar to ‘Go to tab’)
NEW: List all duplicate tabs, close them directly from list.
Tune the core functionality using options - add websites or domains to allow-list to allow duplicates, or use the block-list to only block duplicates on certain websites.
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OTHER FEATURES:
1. Quick Tab Search (Ctrl/Command + Shift + L)
- Search and switch to tabs across Chrome windows
- Close, duplicate, allow-list, or move tab to new window
- Keyboard shortcuts for all common actions - search, select, switch, close tabs (more coming soon)
2. Direct Switch - ClutterFree highlights links on webpages that are already open in another tab. Clicking a highlighted link switches directly the tab where the link is already open.
3. Open tab count - See number of open tabs on extension button
4. List duplicate tabs (e.g. in switched-off mode, or after installing)
- Close all duplicates with a direct click
- Selectively close duplicates
- Original tabs marked with a special icon
5. Keyboard shortcuts and right-click menu options for quick actions:
- Open extension window,
- Duplicate current tab,
- Move a tab to the end,
- Add page to allow-list, and more
6. Detects duplicates suspended by 'The Great Suspender' extension
7. Search tabs from address bar - type `cf` and space to search, and switch to open tabs
8. Detect all pre-existing duplicates, and prompt to close them
9. No analytics or tracking, including Google Analytics
10. Export and import settings to file - to set up different Chrome profiles to same settings
11. Periodic statistics on duplicates prevented, and top domains for duplicates
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PERMISSIONS
>> "Read and change all your data on the websites you visit"
This phrase above is how Chrome describes when an extension uses the 'tabs' and "all_sites" permissions.
The extension needs these permissions to manage tabs - checking for, preventing, and closing duplicates.
You may read more about 'tabs' permissions here: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/tabs
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UPDATES
UPDATE 11 Aug 2024:
- Added MV3 support. Please report any bugs from within the extension.
UPDATE 19 Mar 2023:
- Downgraded to manifest version 2 due to issues with Google's MV3 implementation
UPDATE 14 Feb 2023:
- All supporter features are now free for everyone
UPDATE 23 Oct 2022:
- Fixed support for The Great suspender alternatives
UPDATE 14 Nov 2021:
- Supporter subscriptions are available for purchase again
UPDATE 07 Jul 2021:
- Add support for alternates to The Great Suspender
UPDATE 25/28 Aug 2020:
- Set a tab count limit to control number of open tabs
- Support for reward products
UPDATE 17 Jul 2020:
- Ignore hash and ignore query, on all websites, are out of experimental features
- Advanced URL management
- Ignore hash and ignore query for selected websites
UPDATE 14 Jul 2020:
- Show all tabs from same domain as current tab
- from keyboard shortcut, right-click menu, or search window
- Close all tabs from same domain as current tab
- from keyboard shortcut or right-click menu
UPDATE 10 Jul 2020:
Customisable keyboard shortcut actions
- Choose from more than a dozen actions
UPDATE 07 Jul 2020:
Tab Search window updates
- Copy all tabs to clipboard
- Move tabs - to end or start of window
- Pin/un-pin tabs
UPDATE 06 Jul 2020:
- Option to ignore query parameter when comparing duplicates (?a=b...)
- Suspend and unsuspend tabs from tab search (uses The Great Suspender extension)
- Search for suspended / unsuspended tabs with 'is:suspended'
UPDATE 03 Jul 2020:
- Added allow list and block list options, replacing whitelist
- Domain block list is out of experimental features
- Other minor bug fixes and updates
UPDATE 29 Apr 2020:
- Added 'System theme' option for extension window
- Extension window themes are now available to all users
- Minor fixes and code updates
UPDATE 03 Jul 2019:
Building on update from 10 May (below): When a link redirects to a previously open tab, the duplicate tab returns to previous tab before closing. This allows Chrome's 'Reopen closed tab' shortcut action to work as usual. Thanks to Joakim Nilsson for the suggestion.
In a future update, this will become default behaviour: On clicking a link that is already open, the source tab will close. It will go back to the previous page before closing if the duplicate URL is after automatic redirection. Currently this behaviour is in advanced settings.
UPDATE 12 Jun 2019:
Updates for compatibility with latest version of 'The Great Suspender' extension
+ some bug fixes
UPDATE 10 May 2019:
1. New: Option to close source tab when clicking a duplicate link (available under advanced settings)
2. Bug fixes
UPDATE 4 Mar 2019: Settings export/import & more
1. Export/import settings to/from a file to set up a different Chrome profile
2. Bug Fix: Added Momentum's new tab page to allow-list
3. Bug Fix: Check target tab URL before switching (to prevent direct switch to obsolete tabs)
UPDATE 29 Jan 2019: Bug fixes & minor updates
1. Bug Fix: Redirect loops caused when opening same document again from drive.google.com
2. Renamed extension on/off state as ‘active’ and ‘passive’ states
3. Tab search popup opens in the same size and location where last closed
4. Option to open tab search in attached state (some features don't work in attached state)
UPDATE 22 Dec 2018: Dark theme
1. Dark theme option for tab search and duplicates windows
2. Darker direct switch link indicators on light coloured webpages, vice versa
UPDATE 15 Dec 2018: Quick tab search (updated!)
1. Lighter, faster tab search with direct access to tab actions - switch, close, duplicate, allow-list, or move to a new window. Pinning and suspending (Great Suspender) coming soon.
2. Red dot to indicate all duplicates - including those created using the Clutter Free menu or keyboard shortcut (alt + shift + d)
3. Updates to notifications, including option to disable the 'Duplicate tabs found' notification
UPDATE 10 Dec 2018: Duplicate tabs - indicator & lists
1. A red dot on extension button to indicate that duplicate tabs are open
2. See list of open duplicate tabs, and close all or selectively
UPDATE 5 Dec 2018: Context menu update
1. Shorter menu item name when multiple context menus are added - now it just says 'Clutter Free'
UPDATE 22 Nov 2018: Notifications upgraded
1. New in-page notification style - they only show inside Chrome, not on the desktop.
2. Finer control over notifications - decide between ClutterFree styled, or default Chrome notifications, or switch them off entirely
3. Reopen closed duplicates from notification
4. BUG FIX: Tabs occasionally moved to the wrong location when duplicate opened in background
UPDATE 7 Nov 2018:
1. Moved all settings to synced storage so they update across machines
2. Remove AutoConvert Select link in extension window if already installed
UPDATE 6 Nov 2018:
1. BUG FIX: Check for `command` key on Mac for links being opened in a background tab
2. Added links to my AutoConvert Select extension
3. Removed link to my AcceleReader for Pocket extension
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Privacy Policy: https://c306.net/apps/privacy/clutterfree/
Latest reviews
- (2023-10-03) status102: 挺有用的,但是在标签页较多时容易造成Chrome崩溃,而且比较卡顿、消耗CPU资源较多。 在500+标签页时,有时会出现标签页数量统计出错
- (2023-08-03) Victor Cretu: This extension is really a life saver for people that open tens of tabs. At that point you start to loose track of open tabs and duplication starts to happen. This extension has saved me from duplicating my work inside the browser.
- (2023-05-10) Cobus Van Wyk: My work requires loads of research and I've had the Clutter Free extention installed on all five my browsers for years and its magic. I regularly have 30 to 120 tabs open on each of the 2 or 3 browsers that I use simultaneously, and to date CF unerringly prevented any tab duplication, which helps massively in such an overcrowded desktop environment.
- (2023-03-16) Syed Ashraful Karim: Works fine. But I think it should refresh the already open tab when the new duplicate tab is not opened, or there should be a settings whether I like to refresh the opened duplicate tab which is gonna highlighted.
- (2023-03-05) Ym M: I was using this with hundreds of tabs open and was working flawlessly. However, something changed recently that made chrome extremely slow opening a new tab when this ext is enabled. Only option was to uninstall it.
- (2023-02-21) Adam Clark: About a week ago, there started to be an appreciable pause when a new tab is opened and chrome freezes for a few seconds. I went through and disabled all extensions and it was only until this one was re-instated that the issue returned. Even does it when just typing into the address bar sometimes, I guess it is triggering the Url change hook or whatever it uses to de-dupe tabs.
- (2023-02-21) Roderick Dunn: Works well until you have a certain number of tabs open, then chrome starts moving extremely slowly. I had to disable it for now because I always have a ton of tabs open. Would recommend for people who don't keep 50+ tabs open.
- (2023-01-27) Konstantin K.: It was fine extension when it closed duplicate tabs automatically. Unfortunately now in settings this option is marked "Hard limit—Block new tabs when limit is reached. (not yet ready)".
- (2022-12-17) Cristofer: asco de extension,usa demasiada cpu en veces y aveces ni siquiera marca las pestañas duplicadas
- (2022-12-16) Cade Michaels: Great tool. Really needs ability to disable temporarily though. Sometimes I want to open something in multiple windows but I either have to remove the plugin completely or add rules. Right click menu or in plugin context menu would be great.
- (2022-12-16) Nathan: Floating window refuses to work no matter what which cripples the app.
- (2022-12-16) s tory: Recently this extension no longer works with my opera developer browser.74.0.3904.0 Windows 10 64-bit.
- (2022-12-09) N. Somniak: Used to be a great extension. Over the last month or so, however, its behavior has become erratic and inconsistent. It only actively closes duplicates sometimes, and it is unclear what logic it is using to decide when to act or not. For example: I just duplicated a window of 10 identical tabs -- the extension identified and closed one of them, but left the others open. When opening the extension sidebar, I can see that it recognizes the other 9 tabs as duplicates, but isn't doing anything about them. And yes, I confirmed that the extension is running in "active" mode, as evidenced by the ONE duplicate it did automatically close. And this is not an issue of some timestamp or other weird string being in the page URLs, because as I noted, the sidebar IS identifying them as dups. I used to love this extension. I want to love it again, so I hope this is sorted out soon.
- (2022-12-02) Ged Oni: Freezing with a lot of tabs. "Prevent duplicate tabs" works ok in such cases
- (2022-10-28) Aleksandar Penev (aleksoft): After chrome update stop working and start show this error page: Your file couldn’t be accessedIt may have been moved, edited, or deleted. ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND
- (2022-10-27) Fabio Rufino Gallo: It was great until recently. I have a lot of tabs and now every time I try to open a new one, Chrome freezes for a few seconds (anywhere from 5 to 15). Also, sometimes it freezes while writing emails in the web Gmail interface, editing a field in a form, or even typing an address in the address bar!
- (2022-10-25) Kok-Liang Lim: Was great, since last update it lags chrome so much, open/close/switch tab lags, if you have alot of tabs, it freezes whole chrome completely
- (2022-10-24) uğur deniz kılıç: Was great. But now, it started to freeze chrome.
- (2022-10-20) Tim Kwist: As someone who frequently has 3+ mail tabs, plus endless copies of other random knowledge base docs open constantly, this extension has been the game changer that I wish I had found years ago!
- (2022-09-17) Александр Шлычков: Все бы хорошо, но как и все опробованные расширения такого типа, работает через раз. Может быть, конфликт с Auto Tab Discard.
- (2022-08-14) didier Namur: Je l'ai installé pour gérer les onglets dupliqués, ça n'a pas marché. En plus quand je l'ouvre, en passant la souris sur les titres des onglets, ça les met en 1er plan, du coup, si ce sont des onglets youtube, ça lance la vidéo de la page ! Si on passe sur un autre titre, ça lance une autre vidéo et ainsi de suite ! Je ne sais pas si c'est l'extension qui est ainsi ou si c'est une autre extension qui lui donne se comportement, mais c'est insupportable.
- (2022-06-29) Roman Dabal: Easy to use, gets the job done.
- (2022-06-28) Дмитрий Голик: Жрёт процессор, тормозит, глючит так, что приходится браузер перезапускать.
- (2022-06-06) Richard Barrott: Works well. Stops me from having too many copies of the same tab open. Thank you!
- (2022-06-03) Dwayne Kuan: Poor performance. Took 15 secs between clicking its icon In chrome and for a window to pop upI this is due to the number of tabs I usually have open. I had 185. don't use if your super producitivity sort of person with many tabs open.
- (2022-04-30) Lorin Halpert: Worked for years, now no longer closes duplicate tabs
- (2022-01-19) Matt B: This extension does what three or four extensions combined does. It is detailed and includes tweaks that I would say "I wish I had it". I have not found any bug or any issue so far. I am a supporter for the extension and would love more people to support the project.
- (2022-01-18) Person 1: It's very good. Does what it's supposed to but sometimes you can't open a new tab because a new tab page is already opened in another window. Please fix this bug. It also happens in Edge browser.
- (2021-12-04) Rob K: THIS EXTENSION HAS ADVERTISEMENTS. I received a desktop notification from google chrome, generated by this extension, telling me to download "AutoConvert Select" have had this extension for a few weeks, was recommended by a friend. deleted it as soon as i got that notification. (no option to disable ads in the settings)
- (2021-11-19) Liz Panton: This was working fine then today it was disabled automatically with a message that it required a new permission to know my email address. Why does it need to know my email address? Then there was a popup also saying it needed permission to "read and change all your data on all websites". What???
- (2021-11-18) Martin Pool: It popped up a spammy notification to install a different extension from the same author, which seems like a breach of trust... Too bad because it seems like a good idea, although I'm not sure it was completely working.
- (2021-07-10) Alessandro Saeli: Very effective!
- (2021-07-06) Justin Akers: This plugin works like a dream. I declared tab bankruptcy at >350 open tabs recently. Installed this laptop and I'm hovering around 60 by avoiding duplicate quip and gdocs tabs etc. Thanks!
- (2021-07-06) Rus Schmidt: Super-useful extension - I really couldn't do without it. The help popups in the settings menu are very clearly written, although the extension works fine with the default settings.
- (2021-06-03) Ethan Smith: Get this! If only for the ability to search open tabs with ctrl+shift+f
- (2021-05-31) Ifer30: Having a lot of errors. Can't open options page, hangs forever. Not closing duplicates and can't see the list of them. Number on extension icon slowly rises, does not match number of tabs visible on another extension icon.
- (2021-04-28) Andrew Xia: Absolutely phenomenal. However, now that The Great Suspender is banned, it lost some of it functionality. Hopefully it works with the built in suspension on Edge. Other than that, it has saved me so much time. It still works well with over 100 tabs
- (2021-04-23) Pedro Petroli: The tool is great! It would be awesome to have for recognise tabs on unfolded grouped tab.
- (2021-04-18) Andreas: Great extension but doesn't work in incognito mode. If that gets fixed it's 5 stars for sure.
- (2021-04-04) Sandra power: I AM GLAD THAT SOMEBODY CAN KEEP THE BALL SOMETIMES WHEN I AM NOT THAT SAVVY WITH THE WHOLE PICTURE, LATE USER,BABY BOOMER WITH MOST BUSY BUT PHYSICAL DEMAND WHEN I WORKED ,THAMKS FOR THINKING ON YOUR FEET. TEE HEE,HAPPY EASTER SANDI P.
- (2021-03-10) Petr Matlas: It worked quite well in cost of little bit extensive CPU and memory load when I end up with so many windows and tabs. I have the chrome startup option sets to "Continue where you left off" (last session) and I never had problem with this. But a few days ago this extension starts totally hang up Chrome during startup (with many tabs and windows from last session otherwise it starts normally) so the Chrome never runs to usable state. On browser start-up all browser windows from last session starts open one by one with some cached content, but within a while it starts opening just empty windows. GUI of all browser windows is frozen since then and many windows are just totally white, others has tabs, toolbar and address bar but the canvas of the window is empty, just background color of the theme and only a few of windows has partially loaded content in active tab. Chrome extensively load CPU and main Chrome process eats around 6 GiB RAM, but it is not reacting to any user input (except if I click on other than active tab, the text on corresponded tile on taskbar is changed according to tab name, but it does nothing in browser window itself) and there are no open sockets in the main Chrome process. I have no other option than to kill Chrome then. When I remove the session files, start Chrome up, turn the extension off, exit Chrome, return the session files back and start Chrome, then Chrome starts up normally and works fine. But if I then turn the extension on, Chrome totally freeze. So I have to kill Chrome. I found out, that if I starts Chrome after that again it starts up normally but the extension is off - so Chrome hung up so fast that it even didn't write change, the turning on of the extension, to the configuration file. I tried to remove the extension and install it again from the Google Store, but the result is the same.
- (2021-03-04) Akos Korosmezey: Great extension, I like it very much! One suggestion: I use a lot of tabs and it would be more convenient to use an optional compact format of the tab search window.
- (2021-02-07) allmighty Asian: Settings options isn't available in kiwi browser there's a blank page only
- (2021-01-26) F_ck Off: This app is doing more harm than good. Because when you open a copy of a tab, it is removed from the group. And you need to drag it to the group every time over and over and over again.
- (2021-01-16) Javier F: Absolutely useful. An option to hide the context menu please.
- (2020-10-14) 兰凌潇: 很有用,希望在打开重复页面时能自动刷新,页面内容往往已经过期了
- (2020-09-16) Ed Castano: This is a most have Chrome Extension and an essential part of my workflow.
- (2020-07-28) Michael Koren: I click on "Show list with duplicate tabs" and nothing happens, no loading screen, no new window. nothing. Version 8.22.14 When a window does open, its after 5 minutes, its super slow. the list keeps updating so when I decide to click something it just brings me out of focus an back to the top of the list all the time. its very frustrating. you can not do multiple, but, SPECIFIC selects, you have to manually click one [X] at a time. you can either close all tabs or close one tab, not specific multiple tabs all together just one at a time, its very slow. Every time you click on [X] the page takes about half a minute to refresh again during which no clicks work. Clicking on scroll sometimes does nothing when the window is stuck. I believe you should not force the window update rate to be so high all the time, prevent focus loss (middle or bottom scroll becoming top scroll) and basically detach the ui from the real time situation so that the user can take their time and launch a few commands that will take place async without effecting the user experience. My main problem with this extension is that while its loading after enabling it, it completely blocks regular chrome from working till it finishes loading. I can not use chrome at all till it finishes. Couldn't you make it's loading process be less blocking? This was made to fight slowness, not cause it :( Also - close all dup tabs could be super dangerous in making important work disappear, you should add a "are you sure you want to delete X dup tabs?" what if the user mis clicked it by accident? tons of lost work disappeared unwillingly. Make sure "OnFocus" to the extension window does not trigger any GUI button clicks, just brings the focus and that's it. a second click after focus achieved should actually trigger things, since this is dangerous! and unlike chrome's built-in undo close tab CTRL+SHIFT+T, in here there is no undo and no "are you sure you want to?" just a quick closing and your work disappears. The one good thing about this extension is that I feel safe about and I like is "search for tab by name"
- (2020-03-05) Lukas Folmert: Closing duplicated tab and focusing on original tab doesn't work correctly when those 2 tabs are in different windows!
- (2020-01-24) Jefferson Ogata: Used to work. No longer does in Chrome 79 on Linux as of 2020-01-25, possibly earlier. Fails to identify any duplicates.