TabFern tab manager and backup tool

Name: TabFern tab manager and backup tool
Rating: 4.17948717948718 (39 reviews)
Author: https://cxw42.github.io/TabFern/

Save and restore your tabs and windows, and navigate tabs in a vertical view.

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TabFern is a powerful Chrome extension designed to organize your browsing experience by displaying all open windows and tabs in an intuitive vertical layout. It lets you easily close and restore windows with a single click and backup or restore your browsing sessions to a text file without needing to log in. Ideal for researchers and heavy tab users, TabFern simplifies switching between projects and safeguards your browsing data locally without sending it anywhere. Under active development, TabFern welcomes user feedback and contributions to improve tab management and enhance productivity.

With TabFern's user-friendly interface, you can manage countless tabs seamlessly and preserve your workflow across sessions. Its permission settings ensure privacy by storing all data only on your computer. Inspired by popular tab managers but independently developed, it offers a lightweight solution to tame your tab chaos effortlessly.

Extension Productivity Utilities Developer Tools

By:

https://cxw42.github.io/TabFern/

Users:

1,000

Rating:

4.18

(39)

Version:

0.4.1 Last updated: 2025-04-14

Version code:

0.4.1.1337

Creation date:

2020-04-04

Risk:

Permissions:

contextMenus
favicon
offscreen
storage
tabs
unlimitedStorage

Size:

1.42MB

Email:

ta*****@zoho.com

URLs:

Website ,Privacy policy

Full description:

Source:

Chrome Web Store

Data ingested on:

2025-07-12

Ranking

# 22,463 ▲ 119

Other rankings

#3995 in Workflow & Planning ▲ 15 #7 in tabs backup & restore keyword 13 #196 in manager keyword 54 ▲ 3 #217 in tab keyword 74 ▲ 5

User reviews

TabFern is praised as an effective, open source tab manager and backup tool, ideal for organizing tabs into sessions and saving backups locally. Users appreciate its clean interface and active development, seeing it as a promising alternative to Tabs Outliner. Common issues include lack of tab group restoration, memory overload when restoring large backups, no keyboard shortcuts, and limited hierarchical tab management. Despite these, it is valued for stability, speed, and its role in managing tab sessions efficiently across devices.

Pros

Open source and actively developed as a solid alternative to Tabs Outliner, without licensing issues.
Provides convenient backup and restoration of tabs and windows, including saving to local disk in JSON format.
User-friendly interface that is clean, simple, and functional with features like resizable tab list window.
Helps organize tabs and windows efficiently, especially useful for managing projects or research sessions.
Faster and more stable than older tab managers like Tabs Outliner, with no annoying ads or payment nags.

Cons

Lacks support for Chrome Tab Groups restoration, causing disorganized tabs after session restore.
Restoring large backups can load all tabs into memory at once, causing crashes instead of suspending them.
No keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys to quickly open the tab list or manage windows.
Limited tab hierarchy support; currently only one-level grouping and no tree structure like Tabs Outliner.
Some users experience the extension's popup initially opening very large or taking time to load, impacting usability.

Recent reviews

Пока все заявленные и необходимые функции работают превосходно. Само дополнение красиво, удобно в работе- даже окно со списком вкладок можно растягивать и сжимать. Автор молодец!

Al*****, 2024-05-04

Minhas guias e janelas, simplesmente, desapareceram. Perdi todas, com esta extensão.

Lú*****, 2023-09-21

非常好用要是能出个类似edge新出的垂直标签那种侧边栏模式就好了因为想全屏浏览时直接可以点击不得不配一个窗口置顶的外置插件

La*****, 2023-03-12

View all user reviews ›

Extension safety

Risk impact

Risk impact measures the level of extra permissions an extension has access to. A low risk impact extension cannot do much harms, whereas a high risk impact extension can do a lot of damage like stealing your password, bypassing your security settings, and accessing your personal data. High risk impact extensions are not necessarily malicious. However, if they do turn malicious, they can be very harmful.

TabFern tab manager and backup tool requires a few sensitive permissions. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk impact analysis details

Critical Grants access to browser tabs, which can be used to track user browsing habits and history, presenting a privacy concern.
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Risk likelihood

Risk likelihood measures the probability that a Chrome extension may turn malicious. This is determined by the publisher and the Chrome extension reputation on Chrome Web Store, the amount of time the Chrome extension has been around, and other signals about the Chrome extension. Our algorithms are not perfect, and are subject to change as we discover new ways to detect malicious extensions. We recommend that you always exercise caution when installing a Chrome extension.

TabFern tab manager and backup tool has earned a fairly good reputation and likely can be trusted.

Risk likelihood analysis details

High This extension has low user count. Unpopular extensions may not be stable or safe.
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Low **** ********* *** ***** **** **** * ****** **** ***** ********** *** **** ****** ** ** ****** *** *****
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