TabNotes

Remember why every tab is open.
A Chrome extension that lets you annotate any tab with a plain-text note,
while automatically capturing where it came from and when it was opened.

Install · Features · How It Works · Contributing

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Features

• Per-tab notes — add a plain-text annotation to any open tab via the toolbar popup
• Tab title marker — annotated tabs show a ✎ prefix in the tab strip so you can spot them at a glance
• Noted Tabs navigator — quickly list and jump to any open tab that has a note
• Automatic context capture — records the referring page (opener tab) and navigation type (link click, typed/pasted URL, bookmark, etc.)
• Timestamps — tracks when each tab was first opened with relative time display
• Badge indicator — a small dot on the extension icon shows when the current tab has a note
• All Notes archive — browse and search every note you've ever written, grouped by open and closed tabs, with per-note cleanup
• Auto-save — notes save automatically as you type
• Light & dark mode — follows your system preference
• No account required — everything is stored locally in your browser

Getting Started

Install from source

1. Clone or download this repository
2. Open Chrome and navigate to chrome://extensions
3. Enable Developer mode (toggle in the top-right corner)
4. Click Load unpacked and select the tabnotes project folder
5. The TabNotes icon will appear in your toolbar — click it on any tab to start adding notes

Usage

• Click the TabNotes icon in the Chrome toolbar to open the popup for the current tab
• Type a note in the text area — it saves automatically
• The popup shows metadata: when the tab was opened, where it came from, and how it was opened (link, typed/pasted, bookmark, etc.)
• Annotated tabs get a ✎ prefix in the tab strip so you can spot them without clicking anything
• Switch to the Noted Tabs view in the popup to see all open tabs with notes and jump to any of them
• Click All notes at the bottom of the popup to open a searchable archive of every note, including closed tabs

How It Works

TabNotes uses Chrome's tabs and webNavigation APIs to listen for new tab events. When a tab is created, the extension records:

Field	Source
Opener URL & title	tab.openerTabId / webNavigation.onCreatedNavigationTarget
Navigation type	webNavigation.onCommitted transitionType (link, typed, bookmark…)
Timestamp	Date.now() at tab creation

Notes and metadata are stored in chrome.storage.local, keyed by URL so they survive tab restores and re-opens.

Clipboard detection: Chrome extensions cannot directly read the clipboard. When a URL is typed or pasted into the address bar, Chrome reports a transitionType of "typed", which TabNotes surfaces as "typed / pasted."

Project Structure

tabnotes/
├── manifest.json        # Chrome extension manifest (MV3)
├── src/
│   ├── background.js    # Service worker — captures tab context
│   ├── storage.js       # Async wrappers for chrome.storage.local
│   ├── popup.html       # Toolbar popup shell
│   ├── popup.js         # Popup logic — note editor, noted tabs list
│   ├── popup.css        # Popup + shared styles
│   ├── notes.html       # Full-page "All Notes" archive
│   └── notes.js         # All Notes page logic
├── icons/
│   ├── icon16.png
│   ├── icon48.png
│   └── icon128.png
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b my-feature)
3. Commit your changes
4. Push to your fork and open a pull request

License

MIT