How to Search Chrome Tabs by URL in 2 Quick Steps (2026)

You know the site by its domain, but the page title doesn’t help. A row of identical favicons, and the tab you need is somewhere in there. Chrome’s tab search (Ctrl+Shift+A) matches the URL, but only in the current window, only as an exact substring. Two paths find it: the native shortcut, and a fuzzy search across every open window.

Key takeaways

• Chrome’s built-in tab search (Ctrl+Shift+A) matches both the title and the URL of open tabs in the current window. Matching is exact substring: type the characters in the order they appear.
• It does not cross windows, search bookmarks, or handle fuzzy domains.
• SuperchargeNavigation’s Alt+K overlay adds fuzzy matching, cross-window search, bookmarks, and browsing history in one query. No account required.

Step 1: Search Tabs by URL with Ctrl+Shift+A

Press Ctrl+Shift+A (Mac: Cmd+Shift+A). A tab-search dropdown appears. Start typing a domain.

Type github.com and every open tab whose title or URL contains that exact string shows up. The match is a contiguous substring: the characters you type must appear in order, with nothing between them. Type git.com and a tab for github.com will not match, because the substring is broken.

What the native search does not do:

• It stays inside the window you are looking at. Open a second Chrome window and its tabs are invisible to this search.
• It does not search bookmarks, tab-group names, or browsing history.
• It does not do fuzzy matching. If you only remember that a domain contained “str” and “e” somewhere, you will not find it here.

If all your tabs live in one window and you can spell the domain you want, you are done. No extension, no extra setup. The built-in search handles that case cleanly.

Step 2: Find Tabs Across Windows with Alt+K

The gap in the native search is scope: one window, exact substring, no history or bookmarks. SuperchargeNavigation (Chrome Web Store, live version 1.4.3) closes that gap with a single overlay.

Install it from the store, then press Alt+K. That key is Chrome’s suggested binding for the extension’s quick-search command. You can rebind it, and Chrome will silently drop a binding that collides with another extension. If Alt+K stops working after you add a new extension, check for a collision before assuming a bug.

When the overlay opens, type what you remember. The matching is fuzzy: in-order character clusters, not a contiguous substring. The characters do not need to be adjacent in the URL, but they must appear in the same order.

Results fall into sections:

• Current window (by title and URL)
• Other windows (tabs in other open Chrome windows, in a separate results block)
• Recently closed (up to 10 entries)
• Bookmarks
• Browsing history (up to eight results from the last 30 days)

If nothing in any of those lists matches, the overlay falls back to a web search in a new tab, so you are never left staring at an empty result.

A few details worth knowing before you rely on it:

• Alt+Click on a result previews the page inline without opening a new tab.
• Each Chrome window can run its own named workspace, so a project’s tabs stay grouped even when you move between windows.
• The extension takes automatic snapshots of your tab layout every five minutes and keeps up to 50, so you can recover a window state from earlier in the session.
• Saved-workspace sync is on by default for fresh installs and rides Chrome’s built-in profile sync, with a per-device opt-out. No SuperchargeBrowser account is required, and the data never touches a SuperchargeBrowser server.

What Each Search Covers

Pick Your Path

The native shortcut is enough when you keep tabs in a single window and you can type the domain (or a clean substring of it) from memory. Ctrl+Shift+A, type the URL, hit Enter.

Reach for Alt+K when the domain is only half-remembered, when tabs scatter across multiple Chrome windows, or when the page you want lives in a bookmark or in history rather than in an open tab. The fuzzy matching means you do not need the full URL: a few characters in the right order is enough to pull the tab up. Install the extension, confirm the shortcut is not colliding with another, and the overlay is ready. One shortcut, every open tab, every window, plus your bookmarks and history in the same search field.