The latest Chrome browser now shows a puzzle icon and doesn't automatically pin your Chrome Extension. Is there an API to detect if a Chrome Extension has been pinned? Can we detect from Javascript from a web page, or do we have to do the API through the extension itself? (I'm already assuming the extension itself.)

The latest Chrome browser now shows a puzzle icon and doesn't automatically pin your Chrome Extension. Is there an API to detect if a Chrome Extension has been pinned? Can we detect from Javascript from a web page, or do we have to do the API through the extension itself? (I'm already assuming the extension itself.)

• javascript
• google-chrome-extension

• 1 No. There's no such feature, crbug./1074161 – woxxom Commented Jul 11, 2020 at 4:53
• 1 It would be nice to have API( – Ng Atom Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 16:57

1 Answer 1

Here's some code you can use to check if your extension is pinned, and if not, send the user to a particular URL.

You can put this in your Background.js:

async function checkIsPinned(){
  let userSettings = await chrome.action.getUserSettings();
  if(userSettings.isOnToolbar == false){
    chrome.tabs.create({ url: 'https://example.'});
  }
}
//Check if extension is pinned 
checkIsPinned();

This code is adapted from https://github./rustyzone/is-ext-pinned

Warnings:

• It requires Manifest V3.
• It only works when called from pop-up script (e.g. the one that runs when user clicks the extension icon on toolbar) or from service worker.
• It doesn't work from content script. That is, it always returns { isOnToolbar: false } regardless of whether your extension's icon is pinned or not. You need to send a request to your service worker, run the code there, and then send the response back to content script. You can do that via chrome.runtime.sendMessage or similar chrome.runtime.* methods.
• As of 2023-01-02, it's not supported in Safari (see details).