tabsnap

Capture every open tab as a browser-session export: plain text, markdown, JSON, or a readme file. One click in the browser. One pipe in the terminal. Free, MIT, zero telemetry. Optional tracking-param stripping for cleaner exports.

Browser-extension landing · CLI landing · npm · Privacy · Compare

If you think in tab backups, session exports, or a OneTab / Session Buddy alternative that still gives you a clean text artifact, tabsnap is the text-first path.

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Two faces, one engine

The same snapshot.js formatters drive both the browser extension popup and the @v0idd0/tabsnap CLI on npm. Output bytes are identical for the same inputs.

As a browser extension

Click the toolbar icon → tabsnap reads the title and URL of every tab you have open and renders them in the popup as one of four formats:

• markdown — nested list grouped by window, hostnames as section headers
• plain — one tab per line, title + URL
• json — structured array, ready to feed into another tool
• readme.md — full markdown document with a domain-summary table at the top

Hit copy or download and you're done.

As a CLI

npm i -g @v0idd0/tabsnap

# pipe any tabs-shaped JSON in, get a snapshot out
cat tabs.json | tabsnap                    # markdown (default)
cat tabs.json | tabsnap --format=readme    # readme.md
cat tabs.json | tabsnap -f json --no-group # flat structured array
cat tabs.json | tabsnap --strip-tracking    # clean tracking params first

# from file
tabsnap --file=tabs.json -f plain

# include pinned + incognito tabs (skipped by default)
tabsnap --include-pinned --include-incognito < tabs.json

# strip common marketing params from exported URLs
tabsnap --strip-tracking -f readme < tabs.json

# pipe to clipboard (macOS) or any tool
tabsnap --format=readme < tabs.json | pbcopy

Accepted input shapes (the CLI auto-detects):

// 1) bare array
[ {"title":"…","url":"…","windowId":1,"pinned":false}, … ]

// 2) {tabs:[…]} wrapper
{ "tabs": [ … ] }

// 3) {windows:[{tabs:[…]}]} wrapper — also matches the JSON tabsnap exports
{ "windows": [ {"window_index":1, "tabs":[…]}, … ] }

As a library

const { formatTabs, filterTabs, groupTabsByWindow, countByDomain } = require('@v0idd0/tabsnap');

const out = formatTabs(myTabs, 'markdown', {
  groupByWindow: true,
  includePinned: false,
  includeIncognito: false,
});

Pure functions, zero deps, works in any JS runtime that has URL + Date.

Privacy

tabsnap reads only chrome.tabs metadata (title, URL, windowId, pinned, incognito) and only when you click the toolbar icon. No backend. No analytics. No telemetry. Your tabs never leave your machine.

Permissions:

• tabs — list open tabs
• downloads — save the snapshot to a file (only on user click)
• storage — remember your popup preferences across sessions

No host permissions. No activeTab. No content scripts.

The CLI is a Node.js process — it cannot reach the browser. It only formats JSON you hand it.

Repo layout

chrome/      Manifest V3 source for Chrome / Edge / Brave
firefox/     Manifest V3 source with browser_specific_settings.gecko
edge/        Manifest V3 source (mirrors chrome/)
src/         CLI / library source — published to npm as @v0idd0/tabsnap
bin/         CLI entry point
test.js      40 smoke tests for the lib + CLI
dist/        Pre-built ZIPs ready for store submission
shared/      Files copied into each platform tree at build time

Build

The platform directories are already self-contained — load any of chrome/, firefox/, or edge/ as an unpacked extension in the matching browser. The pre-built ZIPs in dist/ are produced by zipping each platform directory.

The npm package ships only src/, bin/, README.md, and LICENSE (whitelisted via the files field in package.json).

node test.js     # run all 40 tests
npm publish --access public

From the same studio

• @v0idd0/interviewprep — turn a job posting into a prep brief, then export it in browser or CLI
• @v0idd0/jsonyo — JSON swiss army knife, 18 commands, zero limits
• @v0idd0/envguard — stop shipping .env drift to staging
• @v0idd0/depcheck — find unused dependencies in one command
• @v0idd0/gitstats — git repo analytics, one command
• View all tools →

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Built by vøiddo — a small studio shipping AI-flavoured products, free dev tools, Chrome extensions and weird browser games.