How to open new tab in an existing incognito window?

Question

I'm writing a chrome extension about creating new tab from context menus in an incognito window. I'm using a script like this:

chrome.windows.create({url: "https://google.com", incognito: true});

The script works, but it always pops out a new window when it activates. Is there any way to open a new tab in an existing incognito window?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 20 '20 at 21:50

3

If you want to create a tab inside an existing window you can use chrome.tabs.create() specifying the windowId of an existing window. To know which one of the open windows is in incognito mode, you can use chrome.windows.getAll() to get an array of currently open windows and iterate through the results until you see one with incognito set to true.

Here's a working example:

chrome.windows.getAll({populate: false, windowTypes: ['normal']}, function(windows) {
    for (let w of windows) {
        if (w.incognito) {
            // Use this window.
            chrome.tabs.create({url: "https://google.com", windowId: w.id});
            return;
        }
    }

    // No incognito window found, open a new one.
    chrome.windows.create({url: "https://google.com", incognito: true});
});

answered Feb 20 '20 at 21:50

Marco Bonelli

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Thank you, this is very useful. And also reminding the incognito need to set as "spanning" at manifest. – Edward Tu Feb 20 '20 at 22:25
This is what I was hoped for to work, but seems that in my Chrome 89.0 the incognito windows are not returned by getAll. Why could this be? – ZorgoZ Mar 13 '21 at 12:52
@ZorgoZ you need to allow your extension to run in incognito mode. – Marco Bonelli Mar 13 '21 at 14:44
@MarcoBonelli, thanks, I have come to this conclusion too... – ZorgoZ Mar 13 '21 at 17:04

How to open new tab in an existing incognito window?

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