What Auto Tab Discard is

The extension discards inactive tabs automatically or on demand, with exceptions for pinned tabs, tabs playing media, unsaved form input, power-source state, and listed hostnames or regular expressions. The developer says it marks discarded tabs in the favicon or title and restores scroll position and text-box content when a tab is released.

Feature coverage

  • Automatic and manual tab discarding
  • Hostname and regex exception lists
  • Discarded-state indicator in favicon or title

What stands out

  • Uses Chrome's native discard method
  • Open source under MPL-2.0
  • Updated in October 2026

Tradeoffs to know

  • Overlaps with Chrome's built-in Memory Saver
  • Many options for a simple job
  • Modest rating sample for its user base

Permissions and privacy

Page access

Discarding itself only needs tab access, but features such as skipping tabs with unsaved form input, saving YouTube timestamps, and restoring scroll position need to read pages. If you only want plain discarding, Chrome's Memory Saver needs no extension; narrowing this one's site access trades away those page-aware features.

Data notes

The listing declares no data collection, and the developer publishes a privacy policy on webextension.org. Discarding happens inside Chrome rather than through an extension placeholder page, so tab state stays with the browser. The optional plugin that permanently removes old discarded tabs deletes them, so enable it deliberately.

Pricing

Free and open source, with optional donations. Pricing and plan limits change more often than store metadata, so use the linked developer page as the final check before subscribing.

Alternatives

AlternativeThe Marvellous SuspenderAlternativeTab WranglerAlternativeOneTab

Sources

We used the official Chrome Web Store listing and first-party developer material. Public metrics can change after the fact-check date.

  1. Chrome Web Store listing

    Rating, rating count, public users, version, update date, and publisher disclosures verified 2026-10-12.

  2. Auto Tab Discard product documentation

    First-party product, feature, support, or project documentation used for workflow context.

  3. Extension Reviewer methodology

    How public claims, permissions, evidence, and tradeoffs are reviewed.

View in Chrome Web Store Developer site
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