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Privacy Policy — Smart Tab Manager

Last updated: July 25, 2026

Smart Tab Manager ("the extension") is a Chrome extension that helps you search, deduplicate, categorize, and organize your open browser tabs. This policy explains what data the extension accesses, where it goes, and what control you have over it.

Summary

  • We do not operate any servers. There is nowhere for your data to go except your own browser and, only if you choose to enable it, an AI provider you personally configure.
  • We do not collect, sell, or transmit your browsing data to the developer or to any third party for advertising, analytics, or any other purpose.
  • No account, sign-up, or login is required to use the extension.

What data the extension accesses

To do its job, the extension reads the following through Chrome's extension APIs:

  • Open tab information — title, URL, favicon, and window each tab belongs to. This is used to display, search, group, and let you close or reorder tabs.
  • Categories and settings you create — your custom categories, theme choice, default grouping mode, and duplicate-match strictness.
  • A per-URL category and summary cache — so a page you've already categorized (or, if you use AI features, summarized) doesn't need to be reprocessed every time you open it again.
  • A short history of recently closed tabs — so you can recover a tab you closed by mistake.

Where this data is stored

All of the data above is stored using Chrome's built-in chrome.storage API, inside your own browser profile:

  • Categories and general settings sync across your signed-in Chrome devices via chrome.storage.sync (this is Google's own sync infrastructure — the same one Chrome uses for your bookmarks and settings — not something the developer has access to).
  • The per-URL category/summary cache and recently-closed history stay device-local via chrome.storage.local, since this data can grow large and doesn't need to sync.

None of this data is sent to the developer. There is no backend server for this extension — it is a static, client-side extension.

Optional AI features

Smart Tab Manager can optionally use an AI provider to help categorize or summarize tabs. This feature is off by default and only activates if you go into Settings → AI Provider and:

  1. Choose a provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Grok, or a local Ollama/LM Studio instance), and
  2. Supply your own API key (for cloud providers) or endpoint URL (for local providers).

If — and only if — you do this, the title and URL of a tab you ask to categorize or summarize is sent directly from your browser to the provider you selected, using your own API key. The developer never sees this data; it does not pass through any server we control. You can review or revoke this at any time by clearing the provider in Settings, and Chrome will show you a permission prompt the first time the extension requests access to a new provider's domain.

Each provider's own privacy policy governs how they handle data you send them:

  • OpenAI: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy
  • Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy
  • Google (Gemini): https://policies.google.com/privacy
  • xAI (Grok): https://x.ai/legal/privacy-policy
  • Ollama / LM Studio (local): data never leaves your machine — these run on localhost.

Downloads permission

The extension requests the downloads permission solely to let you save a file you explicitly asked for — an exported tab list (Markdown/HTML) or a JSON backup of your categories and settings — to your own device. This only happens when you click "Export" or "Back up now"; there are no background or automatic downloads.

What we don't do

  • We don't run ads or ad networks.
  • We don't use analytics or telemetry of any kind.
  • We don't sell or share your data with third parties.
  • We don't track your browsing history beyond what's needed, in memory, to render the current list of open tabs.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date at the top will be revised, and material changes will be reflected here before they take effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy or the extension's data handling: connecttovelmurugan@gmail.com