focus-browser-tab

Focus an existing browser tab in the macOS default browser, or open it if the tab is missing.

./focus-browser-tab https://mail.google.com/

This repo is intentionally just a script. No npm package, no install step beyond putting the file somewhere in your PATH.

Install

Download the script:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/koenbok/FocusBrowserTab/main/focus-browser-tab -o focus-browser-tab
chmod +x focus-browser-tab

Install it globally:

sudo mv focus-browser-tab /usr/local/bin/focus-browser-tab

Then use it like this:

focus-browser-tab https://mail.google.com/
focus-browser-tab mail.google.com
focus-browser-tab --app "Google Chrome Beta" https://linear.app/
FOCUS_BROWSER_TAB_APP="Arc" focus-browser-tab https://linear.app/

What it does

• Defaults to the macOS default browser for https: URLs
• Accepts an explicit browser via --app or FOCUS_BROWSER_TAB_APP
• Normalizes a host like mail.google.com to https://mail.google.com
• If the browser is not already running, opens the target URL
• If the browser is running, scans existing tabs via AppleScript
• Focuses the first matching tab by host and path prefix
• Opens a new tab only when no existing tab matches

Matching behavior

• Hosts match exactly or by subdomain
• Paths match exactly or by prefix
• URL fragments are ignored
• Query strings are ignored for matching

Examples:

• https://mail.google.com/ matches https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox
• https://app.slack.com/client matches https://app.slack.com/client/T123/C456

Requirements

• macOS
• macOS default browser should expose a Chrome-compatible AppleScript dictionary
• Or pass --app to target a specific scriptable Chromium-based browser

Notes

• The script uses osascript and is macOS-only.
• By default the browser target is resolved from macOS via NSWorkspace.
• Some browsers expose similar AppleScript dictionaries, but compatibility is not guaranteed.