{"slug": "tab-wrangler", "name": "Tab Wrangler", "category": "browsers", "category_name": "Browsers and extensions", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.727, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2026-01-07", "latest": "2026-09-02", "why": "I use the Tab Wrangler extension and have it nuke everything after like 8 hours or so.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I use the Tab Wrangler extension and have it nuke everything after like 8 hours or so.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/tabwrangler/tabwrangler", "official_url": "https://github.com/tabwrangler/tabwrangler", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Tab Wrangler"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 792572658, "item_id": 49535791, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49535791", "by": "kiliancs", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sidebery, Tab Wrangler and the new Agents window", "excerpt": "I left Firefox for the first time since... well, I _think_ I used it before it was Firefox. This self-imposed exile only lasted a couple months. I left looking for low-friction answers to my need to organize tabs and content. I didn't love giving up control to some central organization to process my data, but I had promised myself I'd write one or two extensions to answer my needs \"next week\" for years. After doing s", "context": "", "use_case": "organizing tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hang on to Your Firefox"}, {"id": 783037120, "item_id": 48939820, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48939820", "by": "jjice", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use the Tab Wrangler extension and have it nuke everything after like 8 hours or so.", "excerpt": "I use the Tab Wrangler extension and have it nuke everything after like 8 hours or so. If I need it again, I can search for it in that extension. I've probably gone back to search for a tab two or three times in the last five years. That 8 hour window is almost always plenty for anything I actually care about.", "context": "", "use_case": "auto-closing old tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you manage too many open tabs?"}, {"id": 744523616, "item_id": 46532726, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46532726", "by": "BeetleB", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's been fantastic.", "excerpt": "Here's a more intermediate approach: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabwrangler/ The basic idea: It closes any tab that has not been visited in the last N hours. You can lock tabs to prevent them from closing (you can match on domain names, etc). You can also see the last so many tabs it closed (1000? I forgot if this is configurable). It's been fantastic. I don't need to manually manage tabs any more", "context": "", "use_case": "Auto-close idle tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "A tab hoarder's journey to sanity"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["organizing tabs", "auto-closing old tabs", "auto-close idle tabs"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 792482912, "item_id": 49530182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49530182", "by": "ssorallen", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's FOSS, no ads, no tracking, no monetization", "excerpt": "I have maintained Tab Wrangler for both Chrome and for Firefox for years: it auto-closes tabs based on a configurable timeout and when they were last active. I'm not sure how people keep dozens or hundreds of tabs open either. It's FOSS, no ads, no tracking, no monetization: https://github.com/tabwrangler/tabwrangler", "context": "", "use_case": "auto-close idle tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hang on to Your Firefox"}, {"id": 769422736, "item_id": 48088921, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48088921", "by": "ssorallen", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Continuing to work on Tab Wrangler, an extension for both Chrome and Firefox", "excerpt": "* Tab Wrangler GitHub Project: https://github.com/tabwrangler/tabwrangler * Tab Wrangler for Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tab-wrangler/egnjhciaieeiiohknchakcodbpgjnchh?pli=1 Continuing to work on Tab Wrangler, an extension for both Chrome and Firefox that has been available and open source for 10+ years. It auto-closes tabs when they have not been active for a configurable amount of time, similar ", "context": "", "use_case": "auto-closing tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49527748", "title": "Hang on to Your Firefox", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48934898", "title": "Ask HN: How do you manage too many open tabs?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085993", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529797", "title": "A tab hoarder's journey to sanity", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 792572658, "item_id": 49535791, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49535791", "by": "kiliancs", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sidebery, Tab Wrangler and the new Agents window", "excerpt": "I left Firefox for the first time since... well, I _think_ I used it before it was Firefox. This self-imposed exile only lasted a couple months. I left looking for low-friction answers to my need to organize tabs and content. I didn't love giving up control to some central organization to process my data, but I had promised myself I'd write one or two extensions to answer my needs \"next week\" for years. After doing s", "context": "", "use_case": "organizing tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hang on to Your Firefox"}, {"id": 783037120, "item_id": 48939820, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48939820", "by": "jjice", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use the Tab Wrangler extension and have it nuke everything after like 8 hours or so.", "excerpt": "I use the Tab Wrangler extension and have it nuke everything after like 8 hours or so. If I need it again, I can search for it in that extension. I've probably gone back to search for a tab two or three times in the last five years. That 8 hour window is almost always plenty for anything I actually care about.", "context": "", "use_case": "auto-closing old tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you manage too many open tabs?"}, {"id": 744523616, "item_id": 46532726, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46532726", "by": "BeetleB", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's been fantastic.", "excerpt": "Here's a more intermediate approach: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tabwrangler/ The basic idea: It closes any tab that has not been visited in the last N hours. You can lock tabs to prevent them from closing (you can match on domain names, etc). You can also see the last so many tabs it closed (1000? I forgot if this is configurable). It's been fantastic. I don't need to manually manage tabs any more", "context": "", "use_case": "Auto-close idle tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": "A tab hoarder's journey to sanity"}]}