Aging Tabs
Extension Actions
Auto-close inactive tabs with visual aging feedback and a searchable graveyard
Aging Tabs auto-closes inactive tabs — but instead of ripping them away without warning, it fades them out so you can see it coming and a searchable graveyard lets you bring anything back with one click.
Inspired by the original Aging Tabs (Dao Gottwald, ~2008) that died with Firefox 57. Rebuilt from scratch for Manifest V3, with modern features and zero external services.
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WHAT IT DOES
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• Visual aging — favicons progressively desaturate across 5 stages (0% → 100% grayscale) as tabs sit untouched. Optional emoji title prefix (⏳ 💤 👻 ⚠️) makes the timer visible at a glance.
• Auto-close with a safety net — tabs inactive beyond the configured timeout (default 30 min) are closed. Every closed tab is saved to a searchable graveyard with one-click restore.
• Smart immunity — active, pinned, locked, audible, grouped, and whitelisted tabs are always protected. Minimum-tab-count floor prevents closing when you only have a few tabs open.
• Global pause — click the pause button in the popup to freeze all aging timers while you work intensively with a set of tabs. Resume continues exactly where you left off, locked tabs stay locked.
• Idle-aware — aging pauses automatically when you're away from the computer and resumes when you return.
• Lock individual tabs — right-click any tab or press Alt+L to lock it. Locked tabs are excluded from auto-close until you unlock.
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THE GRAVEYARD
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Every auto-closed tab is saved to a local graveyard:
• Instant text search across title, URL, domain
• Sort by recent, by domain, or A-Z
• One-click restore
• JSON export/import for backup
• Capped history (configurable) — set to 0 for unlimited
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CUSTOMIZE EVERYTHING
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• Timeout: any duration in minutes
• Minimum tab count: floor below which nothing closes
• Action on expire: close or discard (unload from memory without closing)
• Favicon dimming: on/off
• Title prefix: on/off
• Close warning blink: on/off
• Close empty tabs (about:blank, new tab pages)
• Protect tab groups (Chrome / Firefox 138+)
• Domain whitelist
• Browser notifications with click-to-restore
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PRIVACY FIRST
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• No data leaves your browser
• No analytics, no telemetry, no remote servers
• No account required
• All state lives in browser.storage.local
• Open source (MIT) — audit the code yourself
Privacy policy: https://github.com/ndokutovich/auto-close-tab-ext/blob/main/PRIVACY_POLICY.md
Source code: https://github.com/ndokutovich/auto-close-tab-ext
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LANGUAGES
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English, Русский