Tab Brake

About

Tame your tabs. Reclaim your focus.

Tab Brake puts a gentle speed bump between you and tab overload. Set a personal tab limit — say, 8 — and when you try to open one more, Tab Brake steps in with a friendly reminder to close something first (or override if you really need it).

How it works:

1. Install Tab Brake and set your tab limit (default: 8).
2. Browse normally. The badge on the extension icon shows your live tab count.
3. When you hit the limit, new tabs open a "limit reached" page instead of loading.
4. Choose to close an existing tab from the list, or override the limit just this once.

Features:

- Configurable limit — Set any limit from 1 to 50 tabs.
- Live badge — See your tab count at a glance with color-coded warnings (green, yellow, red).
- Gentle blocking — A friendly page, not a scary error. Close a tab or override with one click.
- Daily stats — See your average tab count, times blocked, and times overridden.
- 7-day chart — Visual bar chart of your daily tab usage right in the popup.
- Enable/disable — Turn limiting on or off without uninstalling.
- 100% local — All data stays on your device. No accounts, no tracking, no servers.

Why Tab Brake?

Research shows that excessive tab-switching fragments attention and increases cognitive load. Tab Brake helps you practice digital minimalism by making you pause before opening yet another tab. It's not about restriction — it's about intentionality.

Privacy:

Tab Brake does not collect, transmit, or share any data. Your tab history and settings are stored locally using Chrome's built-in storage. No analytics, no telemetry, no third-party services.