I want to write a chrome extension which can get the URL of active tab. I want it to always display the current website the person is viewing on his active tab of the current active window. I use the following code in my background script:

chrome.tabs.onActivated.addListener( function(activeInfo){
    chrome.tabs.get(activeInfo.tabId, function(tab){
        y = tab.url;
        console.log("you are here: "+y);
    });
});

This code displays current urls fine whenever I change the active tab in browser. But If I change the active tab url manually by clicking or typing, it fails to register the new url and will only do so if we switch between tabs and e back to this tab. I want to detect both the cases. How should I change my code?

I want to write a chrome extension which can get the URL of active tab. I want it to always display the current website the person is viewing on his active tab of the current active window. I use the following code in my background script:

chrome.tabs.onActivated.addListener( function(activeInfo){
    chrome.tabs.get(activeInfo.tabId, function(tab){
        y = tab.url;
        console.log("you are here: "+y);
    });
});

This code displays current urls fine whenever I change the active tab in browser. But If I change the active tab url manually by clicking or typing, it fails to register the new url and will only do so if we switch between tabs and e back to this tab. I want to detect both the cases. How should I change my code?

• javascript
• google-chrome
• google-chrome-extension

2 Answers 2

Below is a script which takes care of both the cases:

chrome.tabs.onActivated.addListener( function(activeInfo){
    chrome.tabs.get(activeInfo.tabId, function(tab){
        y = tab.url;
        console.log("you are here: "+y);
    });
});

chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener((tabId, change, tab) => {
    if (tab.active && change.url) {
        console.log("you are here: "+change.url);           
    }
});

you should use the chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener api

const getActiveUrl = (tabid, changeInfo, tab) => {
  const url = changeInfo.url;

  // url is likely to be empty, and filter chrome:// and about:// URLs
  if (!url || ['chrome://', 'about://'].some(p => url.startsWith(p))) return;

  // filtering is not an active tab
  if (!tab.active) return;

  // the url address you need
  console.log(url);
}

chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(getActiveUrl);