Quick Switch

Jump to any open tab instantly by typing part of its title or URL.

Overview #

Quick Switch is a command-palette-style search overlay for your open tabs. Press the keyboard shortcut and start typing — Takt filters results in real time by tab title and URL, letting you navigate instantly without reaching for the mouse.

Tabs pane #

The Tabs pane is a permanent panel in the Takt popup that lists every open tab organized by tab group. Tabs not assigned to any group appear in a separate ungrouped section.

Type in the search bar to filter tabs by title or URL. The list updates on every keystroke; clearing the box returns the full tab list.

Click any tab row to focus that tab and bring its window to the front. The Tabs pane is available to all users — no Premium subscription required.

Opening the overlay #

Quick Switch requires Premium. Press Alt + Shift + Space on any page to open it.

Quick Switch always opens in a small Takt window of its own (560 × 480 px), placed over the current browser window. It is never drawn inside the page you are visiting, and it works the same way on every page, including chrome:// pages and the Chrome Web Store.

Searching and navigating #

Type in the search box to filter results in real time. Filtering is case-insensitive and matches against the full tab title and full URL. Every keystroke updates the list immediately — including clearing the box, which returns to the full list.

↑ / ↓ — move selection up or down; wraps around at the ends.
Enter — jump to the selected result (focuses the tab, wakes a hibernated tab, or opens a history URL in a new tab).
Tab — autocompletes the search input with the selected result's title.
Esc — dismisses the overlay and returns focus to the previous tab.

How results are ranked #

Results appear in four groups, always in this order:

Open tabs — all matching open tabs are shown, ordered by most recent use.
Hibernated tabs — returned from the hibernation store in insertion order. Up to 50 hibernated tabs are shown.
History results — returned by chrome.history.search using Chrome's built-in relevance and recency ranking. Up to 20 history items are shown.
Downloads — filenames of completed downloads, returned by chrome.downloads.search. Up to 20 downloads are shown, and only when the Downloads source is enabled.

Open tabs are sorted by the time they were last focused, most recent first. Tabs that have never been focused (such as newly opened background tabs) appear at the end of the open-tabs section in creation order. The combined list is always ordered: open tabs → hibernated tabs → history items → downloads.

Downloads search source #

Quick Switch can search the filenames of your completed downloads. It is a Premium feature and requires granting the optional Downloads permission.

Granting the Downloads permission

Grant the optional Downloads permission from Options → Settings → Permissions. The Downloads permission can be revoked; revoking it removes the Downloads source.

Privacy

The search runs on-device via chrome.downloads.search and filenames never leave the browser.

Only filenames are searched, not file contents.
Downloads appear only when you are typing a query, not in the default unfiltered list.
Selecting a download result shows the file in its folder (Finder on macOS, File Explorer on Windows). Takt does not open the file.
Up to 20 download results are shown, and only files that still exist on disk.

Free vs Premium #

Premium Quick Switch is a Premium feature. The keyboard shortcut Alt + Shift + Space is gated by canUseKeyboardShortcut(), which returns true only for Premium users. Free users pressing the shortcut see no response.

For Premium users, Quick Switch searches open tabs and hibernated tabs by default. To also include browsing history results, grant the optional History permission from Options → Settings → Permissions. Without the History permission, Quick Switch is fully functional but no history results appear. The Downloads source is also Premium-gated and requires the optional Downloads permission (grant via Options → Settings → Permissions).

Edge cases and gotchas #

Always a separate window. On every page, including chrome:// pages and chromewebstore.google.com, the shortcut opens the same 560 × 480 Takt window. Quick Switch is never drawn inside the page.
No minimum query length. Results update on every keystroke. Clearing the search box returns the full open-tab list.
Search is case-insensitive. Typing GITHUB finds tabs with GitHub in the title or URL.
History results are deduplicated. URLs already present as open or hibernated tabs are excluded from the history section.
Chrome internal URLs are excluded from history. chrome:// and chrome-extension:// URLs are filtered out of history results even if they appear in the browser's history.
Zero open tabs. Opening Quick Switch when there are no open tabs shows "No open tabs" in the results area.
No matches found. If no results match your query, the results area shows "No matches found".
The Quick Switch window closes automatically when any other tab becomes active or when you focus another Chrome window. It stays open if you switch to another application.

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