Site in-depth: Tab Topper
JEREMIAH LEE ON HIS TOOL FOR TORCHING BROWSER TABS.
TELL US WHAT TAB TOSSER DOES.
Tab Tosser is a Firefox extension that automatically closes browser tabs you have ignored. It tracks when browser tabs are last viewed and closes them when they have not been revisited for 1–90 days, based on your preference. If you go on vacation, Tab Tosser detects you have been away and pauses for a few days while you catch up. It also keeps a backup log of recently tossed tabs just in case.
WHY DID YOU CREATE IT?
A while ago, I reset Safari on my MacBook Pro while debugging a web app, unaware that doing so would clear the tabs and browsing history on my iPhone. After a panic, I took a few deep breaths and reconsidered if I had truly lost anything. I hadn’t. I could just search and find any website I had open.
WHAT WERE YOU HOPING TO ACHIEVE?
I open tabs with every intention to take action but life happens. Tabs build up. Tab Tosser creates an intentional constraint that helps free myself of digital clutter with no effort. I built Tab Tosser for me but I hope it helps others too.
WHAT TECHNOLOGIES WERE USED IN BUILDING IT?
Tab Tosser uses Firefox’s WebExtensions API. It is written in TypeScript and compiled to ECMAScript 2017. This was my first project to use the Tailwind CSS framework. For testing, I used the QUnit CLI and Mozilla’s webextensionsapi-fake library. I designed the icon and website in InVision Studio.
HOW HAS IT BEEN RECEIVED?
Tab Tosser received more upvotes on Product Hunt than monthly active users in its first month. I think people like the idea of Tab Tosser more than actually embracing the constraint.
Someone sent me a feature request to add a list of domains to never close. They said they had work documents they would never want to automatically close. This sort of thinking is precisely what Tab Tosser is meant to change. If a tab is truly important, you will click it within a reasonable amount of time. People have written to thank me. One person said Tab Tosser helped them digitally in the way the KonMari method helped them with physical objects.
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL DO NEXT WITH IT?
Tab Tosser changed my behaviour towards articles specifically. I now send articles I want to read to Pocket ( https://getpocket.com/) instead of opening in a tab. I blocked time on my calendar to read but there are still articles I never get to. I’m thinking about creating an expiration time extension to Pocket.
I am also considering making Tab Tosser available for Brave and Microsoft Edge. Google seems to have abandoned collaboration with Mozilla on a WebExtensions API standard and Chromium does not have the tab lastAccessed feature Tab Tosser relies on. I don’t know enough C++ to add the functionality but a JavaScript polyfill seems plausible.