Help — Tab Shelf

Short answers to the questions we get. Anything else: [email protected] — a person reads every message, usually within a day.

Getting started (30 seconds)

1. Pin the icon. Click the puzzle piece at the top right of Chrome, then the pin next to Tab Shelf. Without it you won't see the ! badge that says there is something to recover.

2. Save a window. Click the icon → Save this window (or press Alt+Shift+S). Give it a name or not. Tab groups, colours and pinned tabs are saved with it.

3. Open the manager. Alt+Shift+M, or icon → Open manager: sessions, automatic snapshots and the trash live there. Show tabs on any session lets you restore only the tabs you tick.

Chrome crashed or restarted and my tabs are gone

Open the manager. If Chrome came back with fewer tabs than before, a Restore last snapshot bar appears at the top; one click brings everything back in a new window. If the bar isn't there, scroll to Automatic snapshots and use Restore on the most recent one. Snapshots are taken every 5 minutes (only when something changed), so at most you lose the last few minutes.

Snapshots: what they are and what they cost

A snapshot is a picture of all your open windows, kept automatically. Free keeps the last 10; when the list is full, the oldest is replaced. Saving and restoring sessions is never limited. Pro keeps 30 days of snapshots. Change the interval (1–30 minutes) in Settings. Incognito windows are never captured.

Moving from Toby, Workona, OneTab or Session Buddy

Export from the other extension, then in the Tab Shelf manager click Import… and choose the file. Each collection becomes a session. Step-by-step for each tool: Moving from Toby / Workona / OneTab. A Chrome bookmarks export (HTML) works too.

Backups, export and moving to another computer

Export… in the manager writes one JSON file with all sessions, snapshots and trash. On the other computer, Import… that file. In Settings you can turn on a weekly backup file (Chrome will ask once for permission to save into Downloads/Tab Shelf). There is no cloud sync, on purpose: your data stays on your machine.

Pro licence

After buying Pro on Polar you receive an email with a key starting with TABSHELF- (also in the Polar customer portal). Settings → Pro licence → paste → Activate. One key works on up to 3 browsers; Deactivate this browser frees a slot. The key is checked with our server about once a week; if you're offline it keeps working for 14 days. Lost the key? Use the Polar portal with your purchase email, or write to us.

Refunds

14 days, no questions asked: reply to your Polar receipt or write to [email protected] with the purchase email.

Permissions, explained

tabs, tabGroups: read and restore the tabs you save. storage, unlimitedStorage: keep sessions on your computer. alarms: periodic snapshots. clip.malvatech.app: the licence check only — it receives the key and nothing else. Details in the privacy policy.

Something is wrong

Write to [email protected] with what you did, what you expected and the Chrome version (chrome://version). If it's a bug we fix it; if it's a missing feature we tell you honestly whether it's coming.