Expire Tabs — Victor Schmidt

Expire Tabs Browser Extension

A simple browser extension (Chrome & Firefox) that closes your tabs after they have been inactive for a specified amount of time. The timer resets whenever you use/focus a tab or when the tab is pinned.

This extension was developed in part to add the "close tabs after inactivity" feature to Zen which is missing, coming from Arc.

✨Features

Clicking the extension icon opens the settings popup where you can configure:

• Timeout: Set the duration of inactivity after which a tab should close.
  • Supports Minutes, Hours, and Days.
• History Limit: Set the maximum number of expired tabs to keep in history.
  • Set to -1 for infinite history.
  • Tabs exceeding the limit are removed (oldest first).
• View Expired Tabs: Quick access button to open the full history page.
• Protect Tab: Toggle protection for the currently active tab. Protected tabs (indicated by a 🔒 badge) will never be expired.

⌨️ Shortcuts

• Toggle Protection: Alt+Shift+P (default) - Toggle protection for the current tab.
• Open Popup: Alt+Shift+A (default) - Open the extension popup.
• Open History: Alt+Shift+H (default) - Open the history (options) page.
• Customize: You can change these shortcuts in your browser's extension shortcuts settings (chrome://extensions/shortcuts).

📜 History (Options Page)

The options page provides a dashboard for your expired tabs:

• Search: Filter history by Title or URL. Multiple terms are treated as "AND" conditions (e.g., "git issue" matches items containing both "git" and "issue").
• Copy URL: One-click button to copy the expired tab's URL to your clipboard.
• Delete: Remove individual items from your history.
• Clear History: Wipe all recorded history.

🧠 Background Behavior

• The extension uses a background service worker to monitor tab activity.
• It uses chrome.alarms to check for expired tabs every minute to minimize resource usage.
• Pinned tabs and tabs playing audio are automatically protected and will not be closed.