browser-automation

Chrome Tabs

kazuph

by kazuph

Chrome Tabs lets you manage and retrieve tab information from Chrome on macOS using AppleScript for seamless browser con

Integrates with Chrome on macOS to retrieve and manage browser tab information using AppleScript.

github stars

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Both formats append explainx.ai attribution and the canonical URL for this MCP server listing.

macOS onlyRequires Chrome accessibility permissionsStable tab IDs prevent accidental closures

best for

  • / macOS users wanting to automate Chrome tab management
  • / Organizing and cleaning up browser sessions
  • / Building Chrome workflow automation tools

capabilities

  • / Get all open Chrome tabs with titles and URLs
  • / Close specific tabs using stable unique IDs
  • / Activate and focus specific tabs
  • / Manage tabs across multiple Chrome windows

what it does

Integrates with Chrome on macOS to view and manage browser tabs through AppleScript automation. Requires accessibility permissions to control Chrome tabs.

about

Chrome Tabs is a community-built MCP server published by kazuph that provides AI assistants with tools and capabilities via the Model Context Protocol. Chrome Tabs lets you manage and retrieve tab information from Chrome on macOS using AppleScript for seamless browser con It is categorized under browser automation. This server exposes 4 tools that AI clients can invoke during conversations and coding sessions.

how to install

You can install Chrome Tabs in your AI client of choice. Use the install panel on this page to get one-click setup for Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, and other MCP-compatible clients. This server runs locally on your machine via the stdio transport.

license

MIT

Chrome Tabs is released under the MIT license. This is a permissive open-source license, meaning you can freely use, modify, and distribute the software.

readme

MCP Browser Tabs

Model Context Protocol server for retrieving and managing Chrome browser tabs information. This allows Claude Desktop (or any MCP client) to fetch information about and control currently open Chrome tabs.

<a href="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/wze1kc6emp"><img width="380" height="200" src="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/wze1kc6emp/badge" alt="Browser Tabs Server MCP server" /></a>

Quick Start (For Users)

To use this tool with Claude Desktop, simply add the following to your Claude Desktop configuration (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "tools": {
    "browser-tabs": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kazuph/mcp-browser-tabs"]
    }
  }
}

This will automatically download and run the latest version of the tool when needed.

Required Setup

  1. Enable Accessibility for Chrome:
    • Open System Settings
    • Go to Privacy & Security > Accessibility
    • Click the "+" button
    • Add Google Chrome from your Applications folder
    • Turn ON the toggle for Chrome

This accessibility setting is required for AppleScript to interact with Chrome tabs.

For Developers

The following sections are for those who want to develop or modify the tool.

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 18+
  • macOS (for AppleScript operations)
  • Google Chrome
  • Claude Desktop (install from https://claude.ai/desktop)
  • tsx (install via npm install -g tsx)

Installation

git clone https://github.com/kazuph/mcp-browser-tabs.git
cd mcp-browser-tabs
npm install
npm run build

Available Tools

  • get_tabs: Retrieves all open tabs from Google Chrome browser, returning their titles and URLs. Tabs are grouped by window and displayed in a format like "Window 1-1" (Window 1, Tab 1).

  • close_tab: Closes a specific tab in Google Chrome using window and tab indices.

    • Parameters:
      • windowIndex: Window number (starts from 1)
      • tabIndex: Tab number within the window (starts from 1)
    • Note: When closing multiple tabs, start from the highest index numbers to avoid index shifting. After closing tabs, use get_tabs to confirm the changes.

Notes

  • This tool is designed for macOS only due to its dependency on AppleScript.
  • Requires Google Chrome to be installed and running.
  • Accessibility permissions must be granted for Chrome.

License

MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details

FAQ

What is the Chrome Tabs MCP server?
Chrome Tabs is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server profile on explainx.ai. MCP lets AI hosts (e.g. Claude Desktop, Cursor) call tools and resources through a standard interface; this page summarizes categories, install hints, and community ratings.
How do MCP servers relate to agent skills?
Skills are reusable instruction packages (often SKILL.md); MCP servers expose live capabilities. Teams frequently combine both—skills for workflows, MCP for APIs and data. See explainx.ai/skills and explainx.ai/mcp-servers for parallel directories.
How are reviews shown for Chrome Tabs?
This profile displays 33 aggregated ratings (sample rows for discoverability plus signed-in user reviews). Average score is about 4.7 out of 5—verify behavior in your own environment before production use.

Use Cases

Web Research & Information Gathering

Fetch and extract information from websites automatically

Example

Research competitor pricing, scrape product reviews, monitor news mentions

Automate 5-10 hours/week of manual web research

Content Monitoring & Alerts

Track website changes, new content, price updates

Example

Monitor competitor blog for new posts, track stock availability, watch for pricing changes

Stay informed without manual checking, never miss important updates

Data Extraction & Aggregation

Extract structured data from multiple websites

Example

Compile product listings from 10 e-commerce sites, aggregate job postings, collect real estate data

Build datasets 100x faster than manual copying

API-less Integration

Interact with services that don't offer APIs

Example

Check form submissions, validate website functionality, test user flows

Automate interactions with any website, even without API

Implementation Guide

Prerequisites

  • Claude Desktop or Cursor with MCP support
  • Understanding of web scraping ethics and robots.txt
  • Rate limiting awareness to avoid overwhelming target sites
  • Knowledge of legal restrictions on data collection

Time Estimate

20-40 minutes including configuration and testing

Installation Steps

  1. 1.Install web automation MCP server via npm or pip
  2. 2.Configure allowed domains and rate limits in MCP config
  3. 3.Test with simple fetch: 'Get content from example.com'
  4. 4.Progress to extraction: 'Extract all product prices from this page'
  5. 5.Set up monitoring: 'Check this URL daily for changes'
  6. 6.Parse structured data: 'Create CSV from this table'
  7. 7.Respect robots.txt and rate limits always

Troubleshooting

  • 403 Forbidden: Website blocks bots—respect their wishes, use official API instead
  • Rate limit errors: Slow down requests, add delays between fetches
  • Stale data: Target site changed HTML structure—update selectors
  • Timeout errors: Site is slow or blocking—increase timeout, try different user agent
  • JavaScript-rendered content: Use headless browser MCP servers for dynamic sites

Best Practices

✓ Do

  • +Check robots.txt and respect crawl rules
  • +Rate limit requests: 1-2 requests/second maximum
  • +Use official APIs when available instead of scraping
  • +Identify your bot with descriptive user agent
  • +Cache results to minimize repeated requests
  • +Handle errors gracefully with retries and fallbacks
  • +Validate extracted data for accuracy

✗ Don't

  • Don't scrape sites that explicitly forbid it (robots.txt, ToS)
  • Don't overwhelm servers with rapid requests—use rate limiting
  • Don't scrape personal data without consent and legal basis
  • Don't ignore copyright on extracted content
  • Don't assume HTML structure is stable—handle changes
  • Don't use scraped data for commercial purposes without permission

💡 Pro Tips

  • Use CSS selectors or XPath for robust data extraction
  • Set up monitoring alerts for extraction failures (structure changed)
  • Implement exponential backoff for retries on failures
  • Store raw HTML for reprocessing if extraction logic changes
  • Combine with data analysis tools for insights from extracted data
  • Consider using official APIs or RSS feeds as more stable alternatives

Technical Details

Architecture

MCP server handles HTTP requests, HTML parsing, JavaScript rendering (if headless browser), and returns structured data to Claude.

Protocols

  • HTTP/HTTPS
  • WebSocket (for real-time sites)
  • Puppeteer/Playwright (for JavaScript sites)

Compatibility

  • Static HTML sites
  • JavaScript-rendered SPAs (with headless browser)
  • REST APIs
  • GraphQL endpoints

When to Use This

✓ Use When

Use for research automation, content monitoring, data aggregation from multiple sources, and when official APIs don't exist. Best for read-only information gathering.

✗ Avoid When

Avoid for sites with APIs (use API instead), sites that explicitly forbid scraping, when data is copyrighted, or for login-required content without proper authorization.

Integration

  • Scheduled monitoring with change detection
  • Multi-source data aggregation pipelines
  • Fallback to web scraping when API rate limits hit
  • Headless browser for JavaScript-heavy sites

Discussion

Product Hunt–style comments (not star reviews)
  • No comments yet — start the thread.

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Ratings

4.733 reviews
  • Kaira Abbas· Dec 28, 2024

    Chrome Tabs is among the better-indexed MCP projects we tried; the explainx.ai summary tracks the official description.

  • Dhruvi Jain· Dec 16, 2024

    We wired Chrome Tabs into a staging workspace; the listing’s GitHub and npm pointers saved time versus hunting across READMEs.

  • Liam Okafor· Dec 16, 2024

    Strong directory entry: Chrome Tabs surfaces stars and publisher context so we could sanity-check maintenance before adopting.

  • Pratham Ware· Dec 12, 2024

    Useful MCP listing: Chrome Tabs is the kind of server we cite when onboarding engineers to host + tool permissions.

  • Camila Rahman· Nov 19, 2024

    According to our notes, Chrome Tabs benefits from clear Model Context Protocol framing — fewer ambiguous “AI plugin” claims.

  • Oshnikdeep· Nov 7, 2024

    Chrome Tabs is a well-scoped MCP server in the explainx.ai directory — install snippets and categories matched our Claude Code setup.

  • Mei Perez· Nov 7, 2024

    I recommend Chrome Tabs for teams standardizing on MCP; the explainx.ai page compares cleanly with sibling servers.

  • Ganesh Mohane· Oct 26, 2024

    Chrome Tabs is among the better-indexed MCP projects we tried; the explainx.ai summary tracks the official description.

  • Kwame Khanna· Oct 26, 2024

    Chrome Tabs reduced integration guesswork — categories and install configs on the listing matched the upstream repo.

  • Yusuf Farah· Oct 10, 2024

    We wired Chrome Tabs into a staging workspace; the listing’s GitHub and npm pointers saved time versus hunting across READMEs.

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