Tabkeeper: a local-first tab and session manager for Chrome

A tab and session manager for Chrome. Local-first, no account, no cap on what you can save. Nothing leaves your browser.

What it is

Tabkeeper saves the tabs you have open into named collections and puts them back when you want them. It is a Chrome extension and nothing else: there is no server, no sign-up, and no sync service behind it. Your collections live in your browser's IndexedDB, on your machine. Settings live in chrome.storage.local. The extension asks for no host permissions, so it has no way to read the pages you visit.

There is no limit on collections or on tabs per collection, and no paywall on saving or restoring. Pinned tabs come back pinned; Chrome tab groups come back as groups with their titles and colours.

Free

• Unlimited collections; save all tabs in a window, or the current tab, and restore any collection.
• Drag to reorder and reorganise; remove single tabs from a collection.
• Search across everything you have saved.
• Import from OneTab, Session Buddy and Toby exports, from a file you exported yourself.
• Plain JSON export and import of your own data, always, with no license needed: everything at once, or one collection to its own file.
• Keyboard shortcuts for save, save-and-close and opening the manager; change them on Chrome's own shortcuts page.
• Tab groups are kept on save and recreated on restore, and a collection can be split into one collection per group.

Pro — $29, one-time

• Encrypted backups. A backup written to a file you choose (a local folder, or one that iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox already syncs), encrypted with a key derived from a passphrase you set (WebCrypto AES-256-GCM, PBKDF2). We never hold the passphrase and cannot recover a backup for you. Restoring a backup is free for everyone. Automatic scheduled backups are planned, not yet built.
• Session history and undo. A snapshot before every edit or delete and after every save, restore or import, so a restore that overwrites the wrong thing can be undone.

A license key comes from your receipt. Checking it is the only outbound request the extension ever makes; the privacy page describes exactly what it sends.

Why local-first

The common complaint about tab managers is losing everything: an extension update, a profile reset, a sync that went the wrong way. Keeping the data in your browser removes the account and the server from that story, and Pro backups exist so that "local" does not mean "one copy". The source will be public when it ships, so the "nothing leaves your browser" claim can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Compared with what you may be using

• Tabkeeper vs OneTab
• Tabkeeper vs Session Buddy
• Tabkeeper vs Toby
• Tabkeeper vs Workona

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