Bookmark-driven new tab for Chrome. Open folders as tab groups or in split view. 12 themes + custom ones from tweakcn.
The extension is published on the Chrome Web Store. Click the badge above (or use this direct link) to install the latest published version. An Edge Add-ons listing is in progress.
If you want to load an unpacked build for development instead, see Development below.
newtab01 is a Chrome New Tab Page extension that replaces the default new tab with a multi-column bookmark board.
- Multi-column bookmark board with drag-to-reorder and special folders (Bookmarks Bar / Top Sites / Recently Closed / Apps)
- Folder batch actions — open all, open as a Chrome tab group, or open the whole folder in a split view
- Fuzzy bookmark search via
⌘/Ctrl + K(fuse.js, title + URL, weights 0.7 / 0.3) - Popup split view — pick 2–4 URLs from bookmarks or open tabs and pin them into a real iframe split view (
2h/2v/3H/4grid) - 12 built-in themes sourced from tweakcn, plus unlimited runtime imports (paste a tweakcn URL or CSS block)
- 10 languages with live in-place UI refresh
- Per-theme, per-mode appearance overrides and user CSS
The whole new-tab bundle ships under 30 KB gzipped.
A folder with 30 links shouldn't take 30 clicks. Every folder header exposes three actions:
- Open all — spread every link into new tabs
- Open as group — wrap them in a Chrome native tab group
- Open in split view — drop the whole folder into a 2x / 3 / 4-grid split view
Your new tab, your layout.
- Drag folders within a column or across columns
- Drop at a column edge to create a new one
- A folder lives in exactly one column — no duplicates
- Empty columns auto-disappear (one is always kept)
- Special folders (Bookmarks Bar, Top Sites, Recently Closed, Apps) can sit anywhere, not just at the end
Press a shortcut, type, hit enter. Fuzzy-matched against bookmark titles and URLs (weights 0.7 / 0.3, threshold 0.4) with up/down arrow navigation. No selection? Enter forwards the query to your default search engine.
Click the toolbar icon to open a small dialog with two tabs:
Bookmarks and Open Tabs. Pick 2–4 URLs, pick a layout
(2h / 2v / 3H / 4grid), hit Open Split — a new tab
opens with the URLs side-by-side in real iframes. Same engine is used
by the folder "open in split" action.
- 12 built-in themes sourced from tweakcn (AstroVista, MX-Brutalist, Remedy's Control, Magic 2, Astra, Mimi, Manga Vibe, win86, Random Theme 02, Rose, Kawi Green, Optimus)
- Unlimited runtime imports — paste a tweakcn URL or
:root { ... }CSS block into the "Custom Themes" tab; the extension validates it and installs it in one click - Independent dark mode setting (
system/light/dark) — every theme only appears once in the picker; the dark variant is selected automatically - Per-theme appearance overrides — font, font size, font weight,
five colors, shadow blur, and link corner radius can be overridden
per
(theme, light/dark)pair - 10 languages —
en/zh/es/ar/hi/fr/pt/de/ja/ru, with live in-place UI refresh on language switch - Per-theme, per-mode user CSS — drop in a snippet to override the theme for a specific (theme, light/dark) combination
- No analytics, no telemetry, no third-party SDKs
- No content scripts, no remote code
- All settings stored locally / in
chrome.storage.sync— never uploaded to any server - See docs/permissions.md for the full Chrome Web Store permissions justification
| Layer | Choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Build | Vite + @crxjs/vite-plugin |
Modular bundling, extension-aware HMR |
| UI | Hand-written HTML / CSS | Lightweight, no framework runtime |
| State | Plain JS modules + chrome.storage |
No framework overhead |
| Search | fuse.js |
7 KB, zero deps |
| Drag & drop | Native HTML5 Drag & Drop | No dependency, full control over the event lifecycle |
| Animation | CSS transitions / animations | No dependency |
| Persistence | chrome.storage.sync (settings) + chrome.storage.local (layout) |
Cross-device sync, room for larger local objects |
| Context | Entry | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Service Worker | src/background.ts |
Message routing, tabGroups, alarms, context menu, theme JSON fetch |
| New Tab | newtab.html |
Bookmark tree, search, drag, split view (?split=1) |
| Options | options.html |
Settings UI (native form + chrome.storage) |
| Popup | popup.html |
URL picker that triggers split view |
src/
├── background.ts # Service Worker
├── lib/
│ ├── chrome/ # chrome.* API typed wrappers
│ ├── storage/ # chrome.storage unified access
│ ├── i18n/ # 10-locale catalog + t()
│ └── platform.ts
├── newtab/ # NTP entry
├── popup/ # Toolbar popup entry
└── features/
├── bookmarks/ # Tree, columns, folders, drag targets
├── drag-drop/ # Native HTML5 DnD
├── search/ # fuse.js search + overlay
├── split/ # Split engine abstraction + iframe engine
├── settings/ # Apply pipeline
└── themes/ # Switcher, custom themes, tweakcn import
| Metric | Budget | Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| New Tab first-load JS | ≤ 80 KB gzipped | Vite chunk split by route |
| New Tab FCP | < 200 ms | Bookmark data from chrome.storage.local cache, skeleton on first paint |
| Service Worker | < 10 KB | Routing + alarms only, no heavy deps |
| Drag & drop | 60 fps | Native DnD, no per-frame re-render |
# Install dependencies
pnpm install
# Dev mode (with HMR)
pnpm dev
# Production build (output in dist/)
pnpm buildAfter pnpm build, load dist/ as an "unpacked extension" in
chrome://extensions/ (Developer mode on).
See CLAUDE.md for the full engineering conventions and docs/i18n.md for the internationalization workflow.
MIT — see LICENSE_MIT.txt.
Maintained by @lingyired. AI co-author: TRAE.AI.
"Built with humans and AI, in the open."
Inspired by Humble New Tab Page by ibillingsley and contributors (MIT).
- Bookmark editing (currently read-only + drag-to-reorder)
- History search (currently bookmarks only)
NativeSplitEnginebased on the Chrome Window Placing API- Virtualized list rendering for thousands of bookmarks
- Firefox support