Manifest

You can use most chrome.tabs methods and events without declaring any permissions in the extension's manifest file. However, if you require access to the $(ref:tabs.Tab.url url), $(ref:tabs.Tab.title title), or $(ref:tabs.Tab.favIconUrl favIconUrl) properties of $(ref:tabs.Tab), you must declare the "tabs" permission in the manifest, as shown below:

{
  "name": "My extension",
  ...
  "permissions": [
    "tabs"
  ],
  ...
}

Examples

Two tabs in a window
You can find simple examples of manipulating tabs with the chrome.tabs API in the examples/api/tabs directory. For other examples and for help in viewing the source code, see Samples.