Duplicate Prevention

Stop opening the same tab twice. Takt detects duplicate URLs, closes the new tab, and focuses the original.

How it works #

When you open a new tab:

1. Takt normalizes the URL using your chosen strategy
2. It checks the normalized URL against all currently open tabs
3. If a match is found: the new tab is closed, the existing tab is focused, and a brief toast notification appears
4. If no match: the tab opens normally

URL normalization strategies #

Different strategies control how strictly URLs are compared. Set a global default in Settings, or override per rule.

The default strategy is ignoreFragment, which works well for most sites.

Universal normalization #

All strategies apply these normalizations before comparing:

• Lowercase the scheme and hostname (HTTPS://GitHub.COM → https://github.com)
• Strip www. prefix (www.example.com → example.com)
• Remove trailing slash (/path/ → /path)
• Decode unreserved percent-encoding (%41 → A)
• Sort query parameters alphabetically

Per-rule strategy #

Each rule can override the global default. This is useful when different sites need different levels of strictness:

• Use exact for single-page apps where fragments represent different views
• Use ignoreQuery for sites that add tracking parameters
• Use ignoreAll when you only care about the domain and path

Bypass methods #

When you intentionally want to open a duplicate:

• Shift+click a link — the duplicate check is bypassed for that navigation
• Right-click → "Open in new tab (allow duplicate)" — context menu bypass
• "Open anyway" — click in the toast notification or popup after a duplicate is blocked

Enabling duplicate prevention #

1. Open the Options page and go to Settings
2. Check "Prevent duplicate tabs"
3. Choose a default normalization strategy
4. Optionally override the strategy on individual rules in the rule editor