Why We Built Tabanac

If you’re reading this, you probably have too many tabs open right now. Us too.

The Problem

Chrome’s horizontal tab bar was designed for a world where people opened five or six tabs at a time. That world is long gone. Today, most power users have 30, 50, or 100+ tabs open across multiple windows. The favicon-only strip at the top of the browser doesn’t scale.

There are plenty of all-in-one tab manager extensions out there, but they share the same playbook: one massive extension that tries to do everything, requires an account, runs background scripts, and charges a monthly fee.

We wanted something different.

One Tool Per Job

Tabanac is a collection of six focused Chrome extensions. Each one does exactly one thing well:

• Auto-Group organizes tabs into Chrome’s native tab groups automatically.
• Archive-All saves and closes all your tabs in one click, with a searchable history.
• Vertical-Tabs puts your tab list in a sidebar where you can actually read the titles.
• Read-Later saves articles for later and resurfaces them so you actually read them.
• Better-Bookmarks gives Chrome’s bookmarks visual cards, fuzzy search, and smart folders.
• Focus Mode hides distracting tabs so you can concentrate on what matters.

Install the ones you need. Ignore the rest. They work together but don’t depend on each other.

Privacy by Default

Every Tabanac extension is local-first. Your data stays in your browser. We don’t run servers, collect analytics, or require accounts. If you uninstall, everything is gone — nothing lingers on some cloud service you forgot about.

Optional sync uses your own iCloud Drive via a lightweight companion app. Still no accounts, still no middlemen.

What’s Next

We’re shipping Read-Later, Better-Bookmarks, and Focus Mode over the coming weeks. If you want to follow along, check back here — we’ll be writing about the design decisions, technical trade-offs, and lessons learned along the way.

In the meantime, Auto-Group, Archive-All, and Vertical-Tabs are live on the Chrome Web Store. Give them a try.