Popup tab switcher

A browser extension that makes switching between tabs more convenient. Available in Chrome web store .

It remembers the order in which tabs were active and allows you to switch between recently active tabs in a fraction of a second without using a mouse.

Motivation

My everyday code editor from JetBrains has a handful popup (Settings > Keymap > Switcher) that simplifies switching between editor's tabs. A similar switcher is build into all modern operating systems, which allows you to jump between apps and it can be triggered by pressing Alt+Tab in Windows and Cmd+Tab in macOS. The project is copying this behaviour to the Chrome browser.

How to use

Default shortcuts to trigger the extension are:

• Alt+Y to select tabs from top to bottom (recent to old)
  demo

  
• Alt+Shift+Y to select tabs from bottom to top (old to recent)
  demo

  

After you selected necessary tab, release the Alt key to activate it.
You can press Escape or click on the space around popup to hide it.

When you close a tab the extension will switch you to the previously active one. It is more helpful than the default Chrome behaviour, which activates the adjacent tab.

Restrictions

The extension tries to render its popup on the page wherever it is possible, but there are cases where it can't do that:

• Chrome's web store pages. The extension doesn't work here.
• Special Chrome tabs such as Settings, New tab, History, etc. In this case the extension tries to switch a user from a special tab to a previous tab without showing a popup.
• The page has no focus (a user searches on the page, focused on address bar, etc.). In this case the extension shows its popup and starts a timer by the end of which it will switch a user to the selected tab.
• File pages (URL starts with file:///). The extension can't work on such pages without a special permission which you can turn on in Extensions > Popup Tab Switcher (Details) > Allow access to file URLs.

Help

Settings

You can open the extension settings by clicking on its icon near the address bar.

Option	Description
Dark theme	Turns on or off the dark theme 🦇
Popup width	Sets the popup width
Popup height	Sets the popup height
Max number of tabs	Specifies how many recently used tabs to show in the popup
Font size	Sets the size of the tab title text
Icon size	Sets the size of the tab icon
Auto switching timeout	If a page has no focus (address bar or search field is focused, etc.) then the extension starts a timer by the end of which it will switch a user to the selected tab. This timer restarts on each selection command (Alt+Y or Alt+Shift+Y by default)
Text scroll delay	If a tab title is wider than the popup then its overflowing part will be hidden. When such a tab is selected its text will be scrolled. This option delays the start of the scrolling
Text scroll speed	Sets the speed of a selected tab text scrolling
Switch to a previously used tab	Switch to a previously active tab when a current one closes
Stay open	The switcher stays open and stops switching tabs on a modifier key release

Replace default tab switching behaviour

Default Chrome tab switching shortcuts are Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab. These shortcuts can not be assigned to trigger the extension commands (Extensions > Keyboard shortcuts chrome://extensions/shortcuts). In order to switch between tabs on Ctrl+Tab by using the extension you can try one of the next approaches.

NOTE: For the moment I know how to do it only for macOS, but I think that solution for Windows is similar and can be done with AutoHotkey.

macOS

Using Karabiner-Elements

Karabiner-Elements is a free keyboard customizer for macOS. After its installation you need to place this config file to ~/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications/ and enable this modification in Karabiner-Elements Preferences (Complex Modifications > Add rule > Maps switching between tabs in Chrome...). Karabiner has a bug that causes releasing Ctrl key on mouse movements (details), this results on instant switching to another tab on mouse movements when the popup is open.

Using Keyboard Maestro

Keyboard Maestro is a powerful macro runner for macOS. The solution with Keyboard Maestro works, but is not ideal, because it starts timers in a background. You can find necessary macros in this forum question .

FAQ

Is there a way to change the default shortcut (Alt+Y)?

Yes you can do this in Chrome (Extensions > Keyboard shortcuts chrome://extensions/shortcuts)

Contributors

Design of the icon and promo images - Alina Zaripova