How to switch tabs in Chrome with the keyboard

TabCmdr's way

Switch to any tab by name with TabCmdr

TabCmdr is a keyboard launcher that lives in your browser instead of on your desktop. Press ⌘K on any page, type a few letters of a tab’s title or address, and press Enter to go to that tab, in whichever window it’s in. The same box also searches your bookmarks and history, runs 47 browser commands and does quick math. It works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi and Opera, with nothing to install outside the browser.

Before you start: add TabCmdr from the Chrome Web Store. It has a 7-day free trial and needs no account.

Step 1: Open the palette

Press ⌘+K on a Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux. Clicking the TabCmdr icon in the toolbar opens it too. The palette lists your open tabs from every window, in tab bar order.

On pages where Chrome doesn’t allow extensions, such as chrome://settings or the Chrome Web Store, the palette opens in a small window of its own instead.

Step 2: Type part of the tab’s title or address

Start typing and the list narrows with each letter. Here, pull matches three tabs: a list of pull requests in this window, and a pull request and a Notion page in a second window.

A few rules help a short search find the right tab:

• Each word matches the start of a word, so pul already finds “Pull requests”.
• A word in the title counts for more than the same word in the address.
• Every word you type has to match. pull 482 leaves only pull request #482.
• Words of five letters or more allow a typo, so onbording still finds “Onboarding flow v3”.

Pages from your history that match come next, with when you last visited them, and below those the palette offers to search Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo for what you typed.

Step 3: Press Enter to switch

The best match is already highlighted. Press ↓ or ↑ to pick a different row, then press Enter. TabCmdr switches to that tab, and if it’s in another window, brings that window to the front. Esc closes the palette without switching.

Jump back to the tab you were just on

Alt+Tab on Windows, or ⌘+Tab on a Mac, takes you back to the last app you used. None of the tab shortcuts in the table above does that for tabs. TabCmdr can, after a one-time change in its settings:

1. Open the palette, type settings and press Enter on TabCmdr Settings.
2. Choose Tabs & Ordering in the sidebar.
3. Under Open Tabs Order, pick Recently Used.
4. Set Current Tab Position to Always last.

Now the list is sorted by when you last used each tab, and the tab you’re on moves to the bottom. The tab you came from sits first and is already highlighted, so ⌘+K then Enter takes you back. Press them again to return.

Keys that work in the list

Start a search with :p to list only your pinned tabs. :t lists your open tabs together with TabCmdr’s commands.

The highlighted row has buttons for that tab: reload, mute, pin, duplicate, open in an incognito window, remove from its tab group, move to a new window, copy the address and close. The palette stays open afterwards, so you can tidy several tabs in a row. The keyboard shortcuts page in the docs lists the rest.

If the palette doesn’t open

• Another app already uses ⌘+K. In TabCmdr’s settings, click Change under Keyboard Shortcut. Chrome’s shortcuts page opens, and you can give TabCmdr different keys there. Changing an extension’s shortcut walks through it. Clicking the toolbar icon works in the meantime.
• The tab was open before you installed TabCmdr. Reload that tab once.
• The site is on your blocked list. TabCmdr stays off on sites listed under Blocked Sites in its settings. Remove the site there to turn it back on.