TabSnapshots

A tiny Chrome extension that saves every tab in the current window into a dated bookmark folder. One click. Monthly groups, auto-organized.

v1.0.2 Chrome / Edge / Brave No network. No tracking. Privacy policy

What it does

Click the toolbar icon. Every tab in the current window gets saved as a bookmark inside a folder named with the current minute (e.g. tabs2605281430), which lives inside a folder named with the current month (tabs2605) pinned to the top of your bookmarks bar. The next click — even a year later — slots into the right monthly folder automatically.

You end up with a chronological diary of "what was I looking at on May 28 at 2:30 PM?" — and a one-click way to recreate that browsing session by opening the folder.

Install

From Chrome Web Store recommended

Sign into Chrome with the same Google account on every machine and the extension installs everywhere automatically (with Settings → Sync → Extensions enabled).

Listing pending publication. Once live: [Web Store link will go here]

Auto-updates · no warning bars · cross-OS

Self-hosted force-install technical

Have Chrome auto-install + auto-update from this site, via the same enterprise-policy mechanism used by managed deployments. One-time policy setup per machine; everything after that is automatic.

Same auto-update. Same no-warning. $0.

Setup instructions ↓

Developer mode (unpacked) quickest

For one-off testing. Download the source, load unpacked, done — but you'll see Chrome's "developer mode" warning bar on every restart.

Download .zip

No auto-update. Each machine independent.

Self-host setup, per machine

The trick: tell Chrome to look at ai.wholetech.com/tabsnapshots/update.xml for an extension with this ID, and to force-install it. Chrome does the rest, every machine, forever.

The extension's published ID (computed from its signing key, never changes):

EXTENSION_ID = hfclkkhpiallohiglbkeacplbfeieajo

The update URL Chrome should poll:

UPDATE_URL  = https://ai.wholetech.com/tabsnapshots/update.xml

Windows · one PowerShell command

Open PowerShell as Administrator on each Chrome machine and paste:

$id = "hfclkkhpiallohiglbkeacplbfeieajo"
$url = "https://ai.wholetech.com/tabsnapshots/update.xml"
$root = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallForcelist"
New-Item -Path $root -Force | Out-Null
New-ItemProperty -Path $root -Name "1" -Value "$id;$url" -Force | Out-Null
"Set. Restart Chrome — extension will install automatically."

Paste the snippet as-is — the extension ID is baked in.The "1" can be any unique slot number if you already force-install other extensions.

Mac · one Terminal command

Open Terminal on each Chrome machine and paste:

defaults write com.google.Chrome ExtensionInstallForcelist -array-add \
  "hfclkkhpiallohiglbkeacplbfeieajo;https://ai.wholetech.com/tabsnapshots/update.xml"
echo "Set. Quit and reopen Chrome — extension will install automatically."

Paste the snippet as-is — the extension ID is baked in.To verify, open chrome://policy/ after reopening Chrome.

Linux · one shell command

Force-installed extensions on Linux go in a system policy folder. Run as sudo:

ID="hfclkkhpiallohiglbkeacplbfeieajo"
sudo mkdir -p /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed
sudo tee /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/tabsnapshots.json >/dev/null <<JSON
{ "ExtensionInstallForcelist": ["$ID;https://ai.wholetech.com/tabsnapshots/update.xml"] }
JSON
echo "Set. Restart Chrome — extension will install automatically."

Verifying it worked: after restarting Chrome, open chrome://policy/ — you should see ExtensionInstallForcelist with the extension ID. Then open chrome://extensions/ — TabSnapshots should be listed as "Installed by enterprise policy". Click the toolbar icon to test.

Removing it: force-installed extensions can't be removed from chrome://extensions/ directly. To uninstall, delete the policy entry created above (delete the registry value, delete the Linux JSON file, or run defaults delete com.google.Chrome ExtensionInstallForcelist on Mac), then restart Chrome.

Stay in touch

Drop your email if you want a heads-up when TabSnapshots ships a new version, lands on the Chrome Web Store, or grows a feature you'd care about (folder cleanup, export to OneTab format, full-page-thumbnail snapshots, etc.). One email per release, nothing else. Privacy policy covers what happens to the address — short version: it lives on the WholeTech droplet, nowhere else.

No newsletter, no marketing, no third party. Unsubscribe by emailing walhus@gmail.com.

What's new

Version	Date	Changes
1.0.2	2026-05-28	Renamed to TabSnapshots; canonical URL moved to `ai.wholetech.com/tabsnapshots/`; email signup added; toolbar tooltip updated.
1.0.1	2026-05-28	Full icon set (16/48/128); homepage_url; auto-update support via this page.
1.0.0	2026-05-28	Initial version: snapshot toolbar action, monthly + minute-stamped folders, OS notification with count.

Source

The whole extension is three files (manifest.json, background.js, plus icons). Download the source .zip to read it yourself. The signing key (.pem) is kept private; the .crx served here is signed with it so Chrome can verify the extension hasn't been tampered with in transit.