tabs

Use this permission for any extension that needs to manage or organize tabs.

Examples:

• A "tab manager" extension that groups, searches, or saves tabs.
• An extension that opens a set of predefined URLs in new tabs.
• A productivity tool that closes duplicate tabs.
• An extension that reloads all tabs in the current window.

Requesting the tabs permission on its own does not trigger an installation warning. However, it is often used with other permissions that do.

{
  "name": "My Tabs Extension",
  "version": "1.0",
  "manifest_version": 3,
  "permissions": [
    "tabs"
  ],
  "background": {
    "service_worker": "background.js"
  }
}

Why is it medium risk?

This permission lets an extension perform basic actions on tabs (open, close, move) — and, importantly, it also unlocks access to sensitive Tab properties: the URL, page title, and favicon of every tab in the browser at any time.

That means a tabs-only extension cannot read page contents (it would need a host permission for that), but it can quietly enumerate every URL you visit, building a near-complete browsing-history feed. For this reason Chrome surfaces a "Read your browsing history" warning when an extension declares tabs. Prefer activeTab whenever the extension only needs information about the page the user is currently interacting with.

This example finds all tabs hosting Chrome extension documentation and groups them into a new window.

// background.js

chrome.action.onClicked.addListener(groupDocumentationTabs);

function groupDocumentationTabs() {
  chrome.tabs.query({ url: "https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/*" }, (tabs) => {
    if (tabs.length === 0) {
      console.log("No Chrome extension documentation tabs found.");
      return;
    }

    const tabIds = tabs.map(tab => tab.id);

    // Create a new window
    chrome.windows.create({}, (newWindow) => {
      // Move the found tabs to the new window
      chrome.tabs.move(tabIds, { windowId: newWindow.id, index: -1 });
    });
  });
}