Tabs Rotator / Slideshow

About

Tabs Rotator cycles through a list of web pages in separate tabs, like a slideshow.
Perfect for dashboards, monitoring, TVs, info-kiosks, reports, and digital signage.

Highlights:

- Rotate web or local pages (file:// links supported)
- Per-page display time and auto-reload
- Import/Export settings; Remote JSON config with auto-updates
- Retries and skips failing pages automatically
- Persists across restarts; prevents tab spam
- Offline-friendly: keeps the last good version if updates fail

How to use:

- Open the extension and add your pages
- Set display time and optional reload interval
- Start rotation; press F11 for fullscreen or configure with "Start in Fullscreen Mode" option
- To stop rotation, first exit from the full screen mode by pressing F11, then click on the extension icon and click Stop.

For local files, enable Allow access to file URLs under chrome://extensions/

To start Chrome automatically after a Windows restart, follow this guide: https://github.com/skarpovru/chrome-tabs-rotator/blob/main/windows-autostart.md

Open source:

- Repository (README, docs): https://github.com/skarpovru/chrome-tabs-rotator
- License: MIT

Privacy:

- No tracking or analytics
- Only minimal permissions to rotate tabs and store your settings
- Remote config is read-only; nothing is uploaded

Changelog:

[1.0] - 2024-08-28
- Initial release.

[1.1] - 2024-10-07
- Immediately save imported configuration into the browser storage.
- Added "Allow access to file URLs" activation instruction.

[1.2] - 2025-08-28
- Uses chrome.alarms for all scheduling (service-worker friendly)
- Persists currentIndex in storage so rotation survives worker sleep/restart
- Adds anti-spam guards to prevent runaway tab creation
- Added diagnostics UI

[1.3] - 2025-09-02
- Fixed the continuation of rotation after browser/computer restart.

[1.4] - 2025-10-02
- Optional setting to prevent stealing window focus during rotation
- Watchdog self-heals if a rotation becomes overdue
- Added Force rotate button for immediate manual advance
- Activation diagnostics: per-attempt history, last success age, colored badge
- Debug activation logging toggle + clear error/history buttons

[1.5] - 2025-10-08
- Fix: Extension could appear "started" after browser restart, but no tabs/fullscreen until manual stop/start.
- Fix: Rare runaway tab creation on reload alarms (continuous new tabs) caused by creating a fresh tab instead of reloading the existing one when only the primary tab is present.

[1.6] - 2025-10-20
- Improved crash/restart tab recovery robustness (grace + watchdog interplay tightened).
- Enforced the tabs order.
- Added comprehensive Playwright E2E test suite.

[1.7] - 2025-10-25
- Fixed import configuration.
- Deferred reload: avoids reloading the active tab until rotation switches away (unless only one tab).
- Real network errors (DNS, unreachable) now suspend failing tabs and skip them in rotation.

Need help or want a feature? Open an issue: github.com/skarpovru/chrome-tabs-rotator/issues