A lightweight Chromium-based browser extension to automatically put inactive tabs to sleep after 5 minutes — saving memory and boosting your browsing performance.
In version v0.2.0, Tab Nap just got smarter.
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Ignore List Support You no longer need to pin tabs to prevent them from being discarded. Now, you can simply add websites to an ignore list—those tabs will stay safe, even when inactive.
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Settings Panel Click “See More Settings” in the popup to manage your ignored sites:
- Type or paste any website URL
- Hit Save Site
- It’s added to your ignore list instantly
Want to keep WhatsApp Web or Notion running in the background?
Just add https://web.whatsapp.com or https://notion.so to the list. Tab Nap will leave them alone.
- Automatically hibernates inactive tabs after 5 minutes
- Skips pinned tabs (they stay awake)
- Now supports custom ignore list for domains you don’t want discarded
- Runs silently in the background
- Minimal UI to toggle the feature ON/OFF
- Lightweight and efficient
- Download the latest release ZIP from Releases
- Extract the ZIP anywhere on your computer
- Open your browser and go to:
chrome://extensions/ - Enable Developer Mode (toggle top-right)
- Click Load unpacked and select the extracted folder
- Toggle tabNap ON via the extension popup
⚠️ Note: This manual method will show a warning about Developer Mode. It’s normal for unpacked extensions. Updates must be done manually.
tabNap is an open source project and your contributions are welcome!
- Feel free to report issues or feature requests in the GitHub repo
- Fork and submit pull requests for bug fixes or new features
- Follow coding style and add tests where possible
- Discuss ideas and improvements openly
Planned improvements:
- Custom inactivity timeout
- Whitelist for tabs that never sleep
- Notifications when tabs are discarded
- UI/UX polish and performance tuning
- Publishing on Chrome Web Store
This project is licensed under the Tahsin Public License (TPL) v1.0.
Thanks for checking out tabNap! Stay tuned for updates 🔥