Tab Auto Switch — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 2026-09-12
1. The short version
Tab Auto Switch does not collect, store, transmit, or sell any personal data. It has no servers, no analytics, no telemetry, and no network access of any kind.
2. What the extension can see
To rotate through tabs, Chrome grants the extension the tabs and
tabGroups permissions. These let it read the title, URL, and
favicon of your open tabs and tab groups, and activate a tab.
That information is used for exactly two things:
- Listing your tabs and groups in the popup so you can choose what to rotate.
- Switching to the tab whose turn it is.
Tab titles and URLs are never written to disk, never sent anywhere, and never shown to anyone but you, in your own browser window.
3. The on-page controls, and the access they need
Turning on "Show the controls on the page itself" asks for access to the sites you rotate. Chrome shows this as "Read and change all your data on all websites", because that is the only wording it has for the permission.
Here is precisely what the extension does with it. It injects one script,
overlay.js, into a tab at the moment the rotation opens that tab.
That script draws a small bar with a skip, play/pause, and stop button inside a
closed-off shadow root, and removes itself when the rotation ends.
It does not read the page. It does not modify the page's own content. It does not touch form fields, cookies, storage, or anything you type. It sends nothing anywhere. The only messages it exchanges are with this extension's own background script, and they carry three things: which button you pressed, and whether the rotation is running and how long is left on the current tab.
The permission is optional. Decline it, or never turn the
option on, and the extension never gains access to any site. The rotation
itself works without it. You can withdraw it at any time from
chrome://extensions, under this extension's Details, by setting
site access back to "On click".
4. What the extension stores
Your settings are saved with chrome.storage.local, which keeps
them on your own computer inside your Chrome profile:
- the interval, and any per-tab dwell times you set
- which tabs, groups, or window you selected, by their numeric Chrome ids
- the four option checkboxes
- whether a rotation is currently running, and its position in the cycle
- whether to keep the screen awake while it plays
Numeric tab ids are meaningless outside your running browser session. Uninstall the extension and Chrome deletes all of it.
5. Data sharing
None. There is nothing to share, because nothing is collected and nothing leaves your machine.
6. Remote code
The extension executes no remotely hosted code. Every script it runs ships inside the package.
7. Permissions, one by one
| Permission | Why it is needed |
|---|---|
tabs | read tab titles and URLs to build the picker, and activate a tab when its turn comes |
tabGroups | list tab groups by name and colour, and read which tabs belong to one |
storage | remember your settings and keep a rotation running across browser restarts |
alarms | schedule the next switch for intervals of 30 seconds and longer |
scripting | inject the on-page control bar into a tab the rotation has opened |
power | hold the display on while the rotation is playing, and release it when it pauses or stops |
<all_urls> (optional) | the sites the control bar may be drawn on. Never requested unless you turn the on-page controls on, and revocable at any time |
Without the optional permission the extension cannot read or change the content of any web page.
8. Changes
Any change to this policy will be published on this page with a new date.
9. Contact
Email ahmad2135+tabautoswitch@gmail.com, or open an issue at github.com/AhmadBD/tab-auto-switch-legal/issues. The support page has more.