How To Keep Google Chrome Extension Popup Open

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Google Chrome extensions are valuable tools that improve your browsing and boost efficiency. Nonetheless, they have their own imperfections. A common frustration is when extension popups automatically close when you switch to another tab. This can be especially troublesome when you’re using an extension that requires frequent interaction. This article aims to guide you on how to keep your Google Chrome extension popup open.

Understanding the Default Behavior

By default, a Chrome extension popup will close as soon as it loses focus, i.e., when you click outside of the popup window. This is a feature designed to prevent extensions from cluttering your screen space. However, this feature becomes a hindrance when you need to keep the popup open for extended periods.

Keeping the Popup Open

To keep a Google Chrome extension popup open, you need some understanding of how Chrome extensions are developed. Essentially, we need to make our extension page a debugger target. This can be done by opening DevTools on the extension’s background page, and here’s how:

  1. First, find the ID of your extension. This can be found on the extensions page (chrome://extensions) under the extension details.
  2. Next, open a new tab and enter chrome://extensions in the address bar. Find your extension and click on the “background page” link under the “Inspect views” column. This will open DevTools on your extension’s background page.
  3. Finally, in the DevTools console, you can use the window.open() function to open your popup page as follows:
    window.open(chrome.runtime.getURL('popup.html'));

Replace ‘popup.html’ with the HTML file of your popup. The popup.html file is usually located in the root directory of your extension folder.

Remember

This trick allows you to keep the popup open for testing purposes or while developing an extension. It is not a permanent solution for end-users because the changes will not persist after the browser is closed or if the extension is reloaded.

As a developer, you should aim to create an interface that doesn’t require the user to keep the popup open for extended periods. If such a scenario is unavoidable, consider creating a separate options page for your extension.

So, that’s how you keep a Google Chrome extension popup open. Happy browsing!