01Developer Tools
Alt-Tab
A keyboard-first tab switcher for Edge and Chrome, with recently used tab navigation, search by title or address, and customizable switching modes.
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The idea behind it
Alt-Tab brings the familiar desktop switching workflow into the browser. Hold Alt and press Q to cycle through recently used tabs, then release the modifier to activate your selection. A searchable chooser makes it easy to find tabs by title or address, while settings support cross-window navigation, immediate switching and Enter-to-confirm modes.
Published as Edge Alt-Tab on Microsoft Edge Add-ons, the same source can also be loaded in Chrome through Developer mode. The extension uses vanilla JavaScript, HTML and CSS, keeps its preferences locally, and includes reduced-motion and high-contrast support without analytics or remotely loaded code.
What it does
- Cycle through recently used tabs with forward and reverse keyboard shortcuts
- Search tabs by title or address, with keyboard and mouse selection
- Switch within the current window or across browser windows
- Choose between modifier-release, Enter-to-confirm and immediate switching
- Customize appearance with light, dark and system themes, compact spacing and accent colors
- Support reduced motion, high contrast and browser-internal pages through a toolbar chooser
Engineering focus
- Maintaining recent-tab order across background-worker suspension and browser restarts
- Coordinating modifier-release keyboard handling across webpages and editor frames
- Handling protected browser pages with toolbar or direct-switching fallbacks
Outcomes & impact
- Published in the Microsoft Edge Add-ons store
- One source works in Edge and Chrome without a runtime build step
- Automated checks cover navigation, search, settings, cancellation and packaging