CRX id
amddgdnlkmohapieeekfknakgdnpbleb
amddgdnlkmohapieeekfknakgdnpbleb
Description from extension meta
Limit the maximum number of tabs that can be open at the same time.
Image from store
Description from store
xTab is a Chrome extension that lets you limit the maximum number of tabs that can be open at one time.
You can set the tab limit to any number and choose what tab should be removed when you hit that limit:
- Least recently used (default)
- Least accessed
- Oldest
You can alternatively block new tabs from opening completely once the limit has been reached.
Pinned tabs, tabs playing audio, and tabs that you have never visited (opened in the background) will not be closed.
If you are looking to install in an enterprise environment and customize settings using a group policy please contact us here: https://xtab.app
Note that after the extension is installed, if you do not change the default settings, it will close any tabs you have open beyond a 20 tab limit. For example, if you have 50 tabs open when the extension is installed, the next tab you open will remove 30 tabs. You can avoid this behavior by changing the default settings as soon as it is installed.
NOTE that a new tab opens when the extension is updated to version 2.0. This is a one time thing that is required to transfer the settings over to the new version which uses a different storage mechanism. This is required for changes related to manifest v3.
Changes
v2.0.4
- Fixes issue where if the maximum number of tabs is set to 0, you may not be able to open a new browser window
v2.0.3
- Fixed “Block without warning” behavior on Microsoft Edge when using the `block` algorithm
v2.0.2
- Fixed issue introduced in version 2.0.0 where in some cases you may be allowed to open more tabs than your limit and then when you go to open the next one, it may close tabs that do not match your current setting. This has to do with the manifest v3 updates mandated by Google. Extensions have to use service workers and the workers get automatically killed every five minutes. This update preserves the state in session storage so when the service worker starts again, it works properly
- Fixed issue where the migration tab may not run if you are at your tab limit and using `block` algorithm
- Fixed issue where sometimes tabs may close at browser startup when using `block` algorithm and “block without warning”
- Fixed styles in the xTab popup
v2.0.1
- Make sure migration tab launches in the background
v2.0.0
- Updated extension to support manifest v3
- Updated storage to use chrome.storage API instead of localStorage directly
- Changed default behavior when using “block” algorithm to block without warning (This change in v1.0.0 was questionable and a little confusing so this restores the previous behavior)
v1.0.1
- Updated extension to remove advertisement in favor of a donation link
v1.0.0
- Rearchitected to support additional functionality and custom builds.
- Updated the pop up UI to make it simpler to understand what the different options do
- Added an option to prevent tabs that are playing audio from being closed by the extension (enabled by default)
- Added an option to recycle existing tabs. This means that instead of closing an old tab it will reuse the old tab and move it into the new position. This allows you to use the back button to get back to a tab that has been closed (disabled by default)
- Added a page that shows up in place of a new tab if you have the extension set to block new tabs from opening (enabled by default)
- Added an option to block tabs from opening without showing a page (disabled by default)
- Added new xTab logo to popup menu
- Updated extension icon
- Updated extension logo
- Improved handling of tabs you have never been to
- Decreased amount of time until a tab is considered active to prevent cases where sometimes a tab doesn’t get closed even though you have been to it
- Reduced number of options in tab limit dropdown
v0.2.1
- Updated copy in popup to be more clear
v0.2.0
- Added option to block new tabs from opening instead of auto closing an older tab
- Handled cases where the tab id could change for an existing tab
- Improved handling of tabs you have never been to so they are less likely to be closed in different modes
v0.1.6
- Fixed issue that would cause this extension to sometimes not work if a configuration value was missing in local storage
v0.1.5
- Added timer to only consider a tab active after it has been open for a few seconds
- Updated to handle tabs that were open before the extension was installed.
v0.1.4
- Updated background page to be persistent
v0.1.3
- Fixed issue where sometimes tabs you haven’t been to could still be closed.
v0.1.2
- Updated to prevent closing tabs you have never been to (for example if command clicking to open tabs in the background)
v0.1.1
- Fixed issue where sometimes the active tab would be closed
Latest reviews
- (2024-05-29) aki toshi: 数日前から全く機能しなくなりました。xTabの設定を変えてみたり、xTabの再インストール等試しましたが依然使えないままです。 便利な拡張機能なので、この問題が少しでも早く解決することを願っています。 chromeのバージョン：125.0.6422.113（Official Build） （64 ビット） xTabのバージョン：2.0.2
- (2023-09-13) Daniel Oliveira: Your extension has a bug. If you close your browser in unconventional ways, such as using the task manager, and you have more than one window open, when you reopen your browser later, probably all other windows are going to be closed except one. If your computer turns off for any reason and you restart it, Chrome will show you a message saying that you didn't close the browser correctly. When you click on the 'restore' button, the same thing that happens when you close your browser with the task manager occurs. So, I think it would be useful if the extension had a history or something similar. Alternatively, if it's easy for the developer, they could just fix that bug. If you need help understanding how this bug has affected me, just let me know.
- (2023-05-16) Brian: works ok until you lose all your tabs
- (2022-12-19) Vishw: A great extension! has really helped boosting my productivity, but a feature that needs to be added, one can just open a new window and have more tabs open that there should be as of extension - it does block all of those opened in the same window but all it takes is opening a new window to bypass it, overall really helpful though, thanks!
- (2022-07-19) Dat Nguyen Ba: hey really nice i love it
- (2022-01-18) Cress Caribou: okay so like it didn't actually work, I have a little problem with having too many tabs open and I have a counter for it (currently at 434 tabs in this browser, but I also have a school browser and I'm still clearing stuff out of my old browser). At one point I got down to around 300 and set my limit to 350, but then realized that xtab did nothing.
- (2022-01-10) Tsunazoz: So simple, yet so effective.
- (2021-12-02) Alexander: When I tried to move and merge several tabs from another window - this extension first moved them, but then closed them all ! I've lost my data !!! Very crooked app! Flaw!
- (2021-11-18) Hasan Baran: ilk türk yorumu helal olsun güzel uygulama
- (2021-10-07) bob king: Ive used this extension for the last several years, it wasn't perfect and there were never any other alternatives, I used this to block any new tabs opening from sites that would launch new tabs to try to redirect me to a spam or scam site, 98 percent of the time it would work well, now its not the case. The other issue ive always had with it is its badge icon disappearing in my browser no matter what computer im on time to time, the only way to get it to show again was to reinstall it which was always aggravating, now suddenly on this site anime frenzy, it isn't limiting popup tabs anymore, luckily ive finally found what seems to be a better solution called tab limiter, its free just like x tab, but seems to be far faster reacting and it uses less memory, xtab was great, but it isn't updated nearly enough, it served me well all these years, but tablimiter will be my new tab management extension...
- (2021-08-07) Daniel Swick: I use this to keep my browser distractions under control. It can be frustrating to try to manage but it's definitely working as intended.
- (2021-07-06) William Davies: I've only just installed the extension but the idea is brilliant and mostly what I was looking for! Thank you! I was just wondering. When I installed the extension I got a pop-up saying that the extension can read my browsing history. I was just wondering why the extension needs to do that? Especially as the extension is no longer open source, this makes me a bit concerned about what's going on. I know it says on your website that "No tracking or data collection" is a feature, but I still got this pop-up from my browser. Thank you!
- (2021-05-14) Morgan Beenen: its pretty good :) ive only used it for a couple days though so i might change this review
- (2021-04-08) Daka Baka: Its very neat and clean, works as intended. Its exactly what I need.
- (2021-03-04) Vikram Maran: Doesn't seem to work.
- (2021-02-15) Pako Boss: very good extension that helped my productivity BUT every now and then it just closes all of my tabs with no explanation, despite my limit being 30 tabs it allows 0. scenarios where i can remember this happened: -opening incognito navigation then closing main browser, then opening main browser again later -chrome wasn't shut down correctly and when restired, every tab is counted as excessive so the browser closes completely there are others, but this is all i remember. this is very troublesome as i have to go and look for the tabs in the browser history and i end up wasting a lot of time like that. i've been using your extension for maybe 6 months and this has happened over TEN times so far. so please fix it. thanks.
- (2021-02-03) Kallie Lancaster: I like this because I can help keep myself on task while doing schoolwork, but my only complaint is it doesn't seem to recognize tabs I have pinned. So, I can wasily bypass this by simply pinning a tab. I do really like this though.
- (2021-01-07) donny rolanda: Hi. this Extensions great!! Thanks. Oh iya please add more options if we get on last tab limit, and try open new link it will open new window. if possible :)
- (2020-11-14) Ela B.: This is amazing. I am in a discord server so I have many tabs open to send images. I also forget to close many unused tabs and forget to search over them. Exactly what I needed. Thank you very much.
- (2020-08-23) Go T: 開けるタブの数を制限できて便利！仕事中につい関係ないサイトを開いてしまうことを防ぎやすくなる。集中するために、私はタブを1つしか開けないようにして使っています。
- (2020-08-17) Tobias Dänzer: Works as described, but is only moderately useful because the tab limit only applies to the current window, and can be trivially circumvented by opening more windows. Would deserve 5 stars if the tab limit were global.
- (2020-03-30) Steve Huang: Be VERY VERY VERY VERY cautious about this extension. You'll be happy about it until a bug hits and all your tabs lost. I've been there. It was really painful. Not giving 1 star because it works when it works.
- (2020-03-25) Joe: Excellent extension.
- (2020-02-28) Logan Reakoff: This does exactly what want it to do, thankyou.
- (2020-01-31) João Bravo: Great extension! One problem though: you can bypass the tab limit by opening a new window. You should consider the number of tabs across all windows, or at least include an option to switch to that behaviour.
- (2019-12-19) Connorfox: good program really works!
- (2019-12-06) Ken Yuen: Can you add a function to make the new tab opens in a new window when the tab limit of the current window is reached? Thank you and good work.
- (2019-10-27) Does exactly what is expected: limits the number of open tabs, either by closing old tabs, or blocking new tabs from being opened. This is a recommended extension for anyone looking to increase productivity by reducing the number of tabs to monitor.
- (2019-10-13) Unknow0059: It is functional. I like it. There is an issue: You have three windows with 10 tabs each. Chrome crashes. You reopen and click the 'Restore' button to restore your windows and tabs. xTab blocks all tabs from every window except the first, and they all get closed, if you're using the "Block new tabs from opening" option. That is immensely frustrating.
- (2019-09-21) Dmytro Kovalskyi: My main goal to limit number of tabs is to reduce memory usage and avoid overloading the machine. This only works if I have a total cap on open tabs, i.e. not in a single window, but across all of them. Basically I need the application to force to chose to close some tabs if I want a new one and yes, it shouldn't done blindly, i.e. I cannot see myself using anything but "Block new tabs from opening". In it's current implementation the extension limit can be easily avoided by opening a new window. As such it's of no use to me. Remove it.
- (2019-08-04) Ivan Brezak Brkan: Works perfectly, although like another user already stated - would love to block myself from being able to open new windows as well :D
- (2019-07-27) shortcat: Useless at it only limits number of tabs per window. I can still open as many windows with e.g. 10 tabs as I want.
- (2019-07-23) Oliver Blomdell: It's not working 100% for me. I've set it to 5 tabs and sometimes if i open a few tabs too fast it will ignore that limit and open more tabs.
- (2019-05-26) Great. Missing features: - number of open tabs on extension icon - supports for links with target="_blank" in case of missing free tabs (maybe confirmation dialog "open in this tab?")
- (2019-04-01) Yinka Adeyeye: Powerful!
- (2019-03-20) 黄永庆: Working as intended, which is just a compliment these days. So, thank you! One point though: I don't quite understand why there's the option of closing existing tabs. Fundamentally, this loses user information without the users consent (made worse by being the default option). I would suggest changing the default to blocking new tabs, and better yet (not sure if possible) notify the user new tabs are blocked.
- (2019-03-15) Petron: Good that you introduced the block, not closing the random tab. However, one feature would be great to have, which other similar extensions include - the tab counter on the icon - with that, it would be clear 5 stars...
- (2018-09-25) Adrian Parafianowicz: Simply and works great. That was what I was looking for in oder to prevent compulsive clickng.
- (2018-09-21) Donato: I think there is an issue related to when I click on a link from another app, like outlook for example, the extension prevents it from opening.
- (2018-05-29) Igor: It is useful and simple. Good work. Just maybe a little too simple. I usually want to block just one (or few) of my open windows, not all of them. It will be a 5 star extension, with a way to make every window have its own settings and allow to choose what to limit or not (e.g. option "windows to block": current-one / all / selected-ones) I'll open a feature request on GitHub :)
- (2018-04-25) Borg Lojasiewicz: Overall I'm a fan (chrome ends up eating too many resources on my laptop), however the "least recently used" policy doesn't always work properly. It will sometimes close tabs I recently opened over tabs that have been untouched for a long time. Not sure what the issue is.
- (2018-04-17) I l: You have to reset the number of tabs every time you log in and out of Chrome. They need to make it automatic so that you dont have to reset it every time so that it remembers the settings you want. Its a good idea but having to reset it every time is annoying. Fix that and its a 5 start for me
- (2018-02-27) Pieter Private: A cool feature would be if there was some sort of indication (ie a red border flash or similar) that the plugin blocked a tab and that it wasn't say an adblocker or something else.
- (2018-01-24) Это расширение нужно включить в базовый функционал браузера
- (2018-01-05) Jonathan Bruck: Does not work
- (2017-12-27) Tyler Durden: can't set the number of tabs and initially there is no option to set the number of tabs so it close most of my tabs..
- (2017-10-18) Dale Hollinger: I've needed an extension like this. However, I can easily bypass the tab limit by opening a new window. Is there a way to limit the total number of tabs instead of the number of tabs per window?
- (2017-09-29) Matías Celasco: I doesn't even work
- (2017-08-12) Nwy Made Of Nothing: Best extension ever, limit distractions and prevents chrome from using too much ram
- (2017-06-19) gerardo gabriel cos: Me interesaría si estubiera traducida al Español, pero igual es muy practica. Felicitaciones