The best tab managers for Chrome: Keeptab vs OneTab, Session Buddy, Toby and more

Published October 11, 2026

Several tidy stacks of browser tabs side by side, one of them highlighted

In short: We make Keeptab, so it comes first: it saves your tabs into lists in one click, backs them up every hour and notes your open tabs every 5 minutes.^[3] OneTab suits people on several browsers, Session Buddy people who think in sessions, Toby and tabExtend teams, and Workona people who want one space per project.

Full disclosure: we make Keeptab, so it comes first and our opinions are not neutral. To keep this fair, every fact about another tool comes from that tool's own website or store page, checked on that tool's own website or store page when we wrote this. Where we give an opinion, we say so.

What a tab manager must do

A Carnegie Mellon study found the same thing: people keep tabs open because they are afraid that what goes out of sight is gone.^[2] So a good tab manager does four things well:

Clears tabs in one click, without making you sort them first.
Keeps a safe copy, so a saved list survives a crash, a bad click or a new computer.
Brings tabs back fast: one tab, a list, or the whole session.
Lets you leave: an export you can open elsewhere.

Tool	In one line (from its own site)	Browsers listed
Keeptab	Save tabs into lists, automatic backups, crash recovery^[3]	Chrome
OneTab	Turns your tabs into one list	Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari
Session Buddy	Save and restore sessions, tab history	Chrome
Toby	Collections and team sharing	Chrome, Firefox, Edge
Workona	Workspaces per project, cloud backups	Chrome, Firefox, Edge
Tabs Outliner	A tree of windows and tabs, with notes	Chrome
Tab Session Manager	Saves window and tab states, open source	Chrome, Firefox, Edge
tabExtend	Saved tabs next to notes and to-dos	Chrome, Edge, Brave, mobile

1. Keeptab: for people who are tired of losing tabs

Keeptab was built around one fear: closing a tab and never finding it again. Click the icon and the window's tabs become a list. Then Keeptab works quietly in the background:^[3]

Every list is written and read back before a single tab closes, with an undo right after.
A snapshot every hour and before any risky action, with 30 versions you can restore.
Your open tabs are noted every 5 minutes, so a crash or a bad update does not wipe your session.
A 30-day trash and an optional daily backup file in your Downloads folder, which survives an uninstall.
Tab groups keep their names, colors and collapsed state.
OneTab import in one paste, and export to JSON or text at any time.

Keeptab is free. Keeptab Sync, an optional paid add-on, keeps a copy of your lists in a hidden folder of your own Google Drive, so a new computer starts with every list already there.^[3]

Its limit: Keeptab is for Chrome. It has no team spaces and no to-do lists. It does one job.

Chrome's own tab groups vs Keeptab

You may not need an extension at all. Chrome lets you group tabs, name and color the group, and close a group to reopen it later from the bookmarks bar or the menu. With history and tab sync on, groups are saved and synced.^[1]

The catch: deleting a group, or ungrouping it, also deletes it on your other devices signed in to the same account.^[1] Groups also stay in your tab strip, so the clutter is still there.

Choose tab groups for a few stable projects. Choose Keeptab when you want tabs out of the way, with a backup behind them.

Close tabs without fear. Keeptab saves your tabs in one click, backs them up every hour and notes your open tabs every 5 minutes. Free for Chrome.

Add to Chrome — it's free

OneTab vs Keeptab

OneTab is the classic: it turns all your tabs into one list to reduce clutter and save memory. You can restore tabs one by one or all at once, export and import lists, or share a list as a web page. It runs on Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari.

Choose OneTab if you use several browsers. Choose Keeptab if you want hourly snapshots, a session record every 5 minutes and a 30-day trash.^[3] Moving is easy: paste your OneTab export into Keeptab. Our OneTab alternative guide shows how.

Session Buddy vs Keeptab

Session Buddy saves and restores whole sessions, can put tabs back in their original windows, and keeps window positions, pinned tabs and incognito states. It has a tab history, collections for bookmarks, and imports and exports in many formats.

Choose Session Buddy if you think in sessions and windows. Choose Keeptab if you think in lists: close a window's tabs into one list in a click, and find it later by title, site or date.

Toby vs Keeptab

Toby organizes tabs into collections, adds AI grouping and a to-do for tabs, and lets teams share collections in shared Spaces. It lists Chrome, Firefox and Edge, plus mobile apps.

Choose Toby for a team that shares links. Choose Keeptab for your own tabs, saved fast and backed up.

Workona vs Keeptab

Workona puts each project in its own space, autosaves every session, keeps cloud backups, syncs tabs between computers and can suspend tabs.

Choose Workona if you want your whole browser organized by project. Choose Keeptab if you want to keep your browser as it is and simply stop losing tabs.

Tabs Outliner vs Keeptab

Tabs Outliner shows windows and tabs as a tree you edit by drag and drop. You can save and close a tab or window in place, add notes, and recover after a crash. Its store page lists frequent local backups and daily Google Drive backups as paid features.

Choose Tabs Outliner if you like a tree with notes. Choose Keeptab if you prefer flat lists, with hourly backups included for free.

Tab Session Manager vs Keeptab

Tab Session Manager saves and restores the state of windows and tabs, with automatic saving. It is open source and runs on Firefox, Chrome and Edge.

Choose Tab Session Manager if open source matters most to you. Choose Keeptab for one-click lists, a trash and a backup file that survives an uninstall.

tabExtend vs Keeptab

tabExtend saves tabs or whole windows into workspaces and categories, next to notes, to-dos, snippets and reminders. It lists Chrome, Edge, Brave, iPhone, iPad and Android.

Choose tabExtend if you want a visual board for a project. Choose Keeptab if you want a tab manager that stays out of your way.

How to choose in 10 seconds

Several browsers? OneTab, Toby or Workona list more than one.
A team? Toby or tabExtend.
A tree with notes? Tabs Outliner.
You just want to close tabs and stop losing them? That is why we built Keeptab.

FAQ

What is the best tab manager for Chrome?

It depends on the job. We make Keeptab and built it for people who want to close tabs without losing them: one-click lists, hourly backups and a session record every 5 minutes. OneTab, Toby and Workona list several browsers; Toby and tabExtend add team features (according to their websites).

Is there a free tab manager for Chrome?

Yes. Keeptab is free; only its optional Keeptab Sync is paid. Chrome's own tab groups are also built in and free (Google Chrome Help).

How do I move from OneTab to Keeptab?

Export your lists from OneTab, then paste the export into Keeptab. Keeptab imports every list, in any of OneTab's export formats (Keeptab's Chrome Web Store listing).

Sources

Google Chrome Help. Manage tabs in Chrome. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2391819?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop
Carnegie Mellon University. Chang et al., “When the Tab Comes Due: Challenges in the Cost Structure of Browser Tab Usage”, CHI 2021. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445585
Keeptab. Chrome Web Store listing. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/dhkabchikhmeedjifpfombjagiicnjml

Close tabs without fear

Keeptab saves your tabs in one click, backs them up every hour and notes your open tabs every 5 minutes. Free for Chrome.