Tab Position Controller
Tab Position Controller
Take precise control of where Chrome opens new tabs: first, last, or left/right of the current one. Choose which tab gets focus after closing, customize behavior per site with URL rules, and sort tabs with keyboard shortcuts.
Everything serves one goal: you decide tab order and focus.
Always first / always last / left or right of the current tab / Chrome default. Also applies to tabs without an opener, like Ctrl+T.
Activate first / last / left / right / recently-used order / the tab that opened it. Focus is only steered when the active tab closes — background work is never interrupted.
Override global behavior per site with * wildcards. Matches both the new tab's and the opener page's URL; the first matching rule wins. E.g. "always open GitHub in background, at the end".
Tabs opened by links, window.open, or duplicated tabs can be forced to take focus immediately or load silently in the background.
Alt+T sorts the current window by title, Alt+U by URL. Pinned tabs stay first and tab groups are never split apart.
No network, no analytics, no tracking. Settings sync across your devices via your Chrome account; runtime state is wiped when the browser closes.
Similar extensions often "put tabs somewhere else than configured" — the root causes are fixed here at the architecture level.
Older extensions: opening several tabs quickly moves them concurrently based on stale index snapshots — order gets scrambled.
This extension: one serial task queue per window; every move re-queries the live window first. Order is always right.
Older extensions: where a tab is born (link click / Ctrl+T / script) shifts the reference index.
This extension: target positions are computed in a coordinate system that excludes the new tab itself — independent of where it was created, covered by unit tests.
Older extensions: new tabs can land inside the pinned section or tear tab groups apart.
This extension: the pinned section is strictly clamped; tabs opened inside a group stay put, tabs opened outside snap to the group's edge — groups always stay contiguous.
Older extensions: tabs get shuffled around while the browser restores your session at startup.
This extension: bulk restores are detected and skipped (optional), so only the tabs you open yourself are managed.
If they conflict with another extension, change them at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
Tab URLs and titles are matched instantly inside your browser — never written to disk, never sent anywhere, no profiling. No servers, no analytics components.
Read the full privacy policy →Short answers to the questions people actually ask.
It lets you decide where new tabs open in Chrome — always first, always last, or left/right of the current tab — which tab gets activated after closing one, whether new tabs take focus, plus per-URL rules and keyboard shortcuts (Alt+T / Alt+U) to sort tabs.
Yes. Completely free — no ads, no subscriptions, no upsells.
No. It runs 100% locally with zero network requests. Tab URLs and titles are matched instantly in your browser and never stored or transmitted. It only requests the tabs and storage permissions. Full privacy policy →
Yes. New tabs never land inside the pinned section, tab groups are kept contiguous, and sorting never splits a group apart.
Chrome 102 or later (Manifest V3).