SuperchargeNavigation: EVERY Feature Explained (2026)

Most Chrome extensions do one thing. SuperchargeNavigation (Nav for short) does closer to forty. The side panel is the obvious entry point — vertical tabs, full titles, pinned tabs visible. But the feature that makes users stay is usually something they find by accident: Alt+Click opens a full-page preview without creating a tab. Alt+G organizes everything by domain in one keystroke. A workspace they closed three hours ago is still recoverable from the snapshot history.

This page covers every feature in one place. Bookmark it. New installs from the welcome page can start with the Quick Reference table and branch from there.

Quick Reference — All Keyboard Shortcuts

Everything keyboard-accessible, in one table.

Shortcuts can be reassigned at chrome://extensions/shortcuts — find Nav in the list. Chrome exposes 4 assignable slots: Alt+K, Alt+G, Alt+Shift+G, and Alt+B (toggle side panel).

Navigation and Tab Browsing

The side panel shows vertical tabs with full titles visible. No truncation at 8 characters the way the native tab strip behaves at scale. Tab groups appear inline. Pinned tabs stay anchored at the top.

Cycling tabs. Alt+Scroll moves through tabs in order. Shift+Scroll jumps between tab group boundaries — useful when you have several groups open and want to move between projects without scrolling through every individual tab.

Arrow navigation. Alt+Up and Alt+Down move through the tab list sequentially. Add Shift to jump between tab group boundaries instead of individual tabs. Enabled by default; disable it in Settings > Gestures if the key combo conflicts with other software.

Rocker gestures. Hold right-click then left-click for browser Back. Hold left-click then right-click for Forward. Hold middle-click then left/right to jump to the previous/next tab group. Turned off by default. If you use a mouse with physical back/forward buttons, leave it off, since the two inputs can conflict.

Trackpad mode. Converts Alt+Scroll from discrete tab jumps to smooth continuous scrolling through the tab list. Enable this if the default discrete behavior feels jarring on a trackpad.

Drag and drop. Tabs reorder by dragging within the side panel. The drag behavior is standard: drag to a position and release.

The most-overlooked navigation feature: the command bar (Alt+K) is faster than clicking for tab switching once you have more than 10 tabs open. Type a fragment of any title and the result appears in under 100ms. No mouse required.

Workspaces

Workspaces are the feature that separates Nav from a vertical tab extension. Each workspace is a named, isolated tab context. Switching workspaces swaps the entire tab view — the previous workspace’s tabs disappear, the new one’s appear. All tabs across all workspaces remain loaded in memory; switching is instant.

Creating and switching. Open Nav’s side panel and use the workspace selector. Workspaces persist across browser restarts automatically, with no manual save step required.

Sending tabs between workspaces. Right-click any tab → Send to workspace → choose the target. The tab moves instantly. No dragging between windows.

Export and import. Use the export button in the bottom toolbar to save workspaces as a JSON file. Import via the adjacent upload button. Useful for backups, for migrating between machines, or for handing a research set to a collaborator who also runs Nav. Pinned tabs, groups, colors, and workspace icon are all preserved in the roundtrip.

Workspace icon picker. Double-click the workspace icon (the folder next to the name) to open a picker with 60+ categorized icons — Work, Dev, Personal, Social, Study, and more. Double-click the workspace title to rename it inline. These small customizations make it faster to identify workspaces at a glance, especially in the NTP workspace pills row.

Cross-device sync. Toggle workspace sync in Settings to keep workspaces consistent across devices. Sync rides your browser’s own account sync — your Google account on Chrome, your Microsoft account on Edge — so it requires being signed into the same browser account on both devices. Nothing passes through our servers, and we cannot read it. Chrome and Edge are separate sync islands: a workspace synced on Chrome will not appear on Edge, and vice versa. Off by default — it is opt-in.

Time-travel snapshots. Nav saves an automatic snapshot of each workspace every 5 minutes. Fifty snapshots are retained — roughly 4 hours of recoverable history per workspace. Access the snapshot list from the workspace menu. Select any point in time and Nav restores the workspace to that state: tabs, groups, scroll position. If Chrome crashes, you close a workspace by accident, or you want to undo a tab cleanup from an hour ago, the snapshot history covers it. This is the feature most users don’t discover until they need it.

Command Bar and Search

Alt+K opens a floating search palette. It searches across open tabs, recently closed tabs, bookmarks, and browser history simultaneously. Results update as you type. Arrow keys navigate; Enter opens the selection.

Fallthrough to web. If no local result matches well enough, pressing Enter searches the web directly. The command bar functions as a combined tab-switcher and address bar.

Built-in commands. Beyond search results, the command bar surfaces 8 action commands that work regardless of what you type: Smart Group, Ungroup All, Close Duplicates, New Tab, Close Tab, Pin/Unpin Tab, Mute/Unmute Tab, and Duplicate Tab. Type any part of the command name to filter.

Persistent search bar. An optional always-visible search bar can be pinned to the side panel header. Off by default, since most users prefer the keyboard shortcut. Enable it in Settings > Features if you prefer a visible search field.

Alt+Middle-Click. Opens a new tab next to the current one. If you have text selected on the page, it searches that text in a background tab instead. This is a content script shortcut, not a Chrome command — it cannot be reassigned at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

When both extensions are installed. If SuperchargePerformance is also active, the command bar gains three extra entries: Suspend all tabs, Toggle site whitelist for the current domain, and Toggle SuperchargePerformance on/off. These commands appear at the top of the results list regardless of what you’ve typed.

Smart Grouping and Tab Management

Alt+G auto-grouping. Pressing Alt+G groups all open tabs by domain, instantly. Tabs from github.com cluster together, tabs from notion.so cluster together, and so on. Groups start collapsed — you see the group chips without the individual tab rows. This is the fastest way to impose structure on a chaotic workspace.

Alt+Shift+G. Removes all tab groups and returns every tab to ungrouped status. One keystroke undo for grouping. Use it when you want to start the grouping process again or just want a flat list.

Tab deduplication. When you open a URL that’s already in the current workspace, Nav displays a badge warning on the duplicate. Click the badge to jump to the existing tab rather than keeping both. The warning is subtle — a badge indicator, not a blocking modal.

Tab lock. Click the 🔒 lock icon that appears in any tab row to lock it. A locked tab cannot be closed accidentally — the close button is suppressed and Ctrl+W skips it. Lock your email tab, your Notion workspace, your production dashboard. Click the lock icon again to unlock. You can also lock multiple tabs at once via the bulk actions bar.

Tab notes. Right-click any tab → Add note. A persistent, searchable annotation attached directly to the tab. If you’re using a tab as a placeholder for a task or a reminder, the note keeps the context visible in the side panel without requiring a separate todo system.

Multi-select and bulk actions. Ctrl+Click tabs in the side panel to build a selection. Then right-click the selection for batch options: close all, pin all, mute all, group all, or lock all. Managing 20+ tabs becomes a 3-click operation instead of 20 individual right-click menus.

Tab nudge indicator. When you cycle tabs with Alt+Scroll or Alt+Up/Down, a brief toast overlay appears on the page showing the newly activated tab’s title. Confirms which tab you’ve landed on without looking at the side panel.

Auto-collapse inactive groups. The bottom toolbar has a toggle (chevron icon) that automatically collapses tab groups when you switch away from them. Only the active group stays expanded. Keeps the side panel compact when you have several groups open.

Copy all tab URLs. The clipboard icon in the bottom toolbar copies every tab URL in the current workspace as a newline-separated list. One click to export a workspace’s contents to a chat, email, or document.

Group context menu. Right-click a tab group header for group-specific actions: New tab in group, Ungroup, or Close group. Different from the individual tab right-click menu.

Sleeping tab indicator. Any discarded tab — whether suspended by SuperchargePerformance, Chrome’s Memory Saver, or manual discard — displays a 🌙 moon icon in the side panel. You can see at a glance which tabs are actively running versus suspended.

Peek Preview (Glance)

Alt+Click any link for a full-page preview overlay. The target page loads completely inside the overlay — you can scroll, read, interact, and copy content. The tab is not added to your workspace. Press Esc or click outside the overlay to dismiss.

This feature changes how you handle research links. Instead of opening 15 tabs to see which articles are worth reading, Alt+Click each link in sequence. Close the overlay if the content isn’t useful. Open it as a real tab only when you want to keep it. Tab count stays controlled.

The overlay is a full-size page render, not a thumbnail. Every element of the destination page loads as normal. Forms work. Videos play. The distinction from a screenshot preview is total.

Super Drag

Drag any link — don’t click, drag — and the release direction determines what happens:

• Drag upward → opens the link in a background tab
• Drag downward → opens the link in a foreground tab (focus switches)
• Drag text upward → web search in a background tab
• Drag text downward → web search in a foreground tab

The safe drag option in Settings prevents Super Drag from firing on web apps that use drag-and-drop for their own UI (Trello, Notion boards, Figma). Enable safe drag if you find Super Drag interfering with drag-based web app interactions.

New Tab Page

Nav replaces Chrome’s new tab page with a focused alternative. All sections are individually toggleable in Settings > New Tab Page.

Turn off any section to remove it from the new tab page. Turn off the NTP entirely in Settings > New Tab Page — Chrome redirects new tabs to google.com.

The workspace pills row is the most useful section for multi-workspace users. A new tab opens and you immediately see your workspace list. One click switches context without opening the side panel.

Settings Reference

Every toggle, grouped by category, with defaults marked.

Gestures

Features

Workspaces

Style

Side Panel Icons — What They Mean

Chrome Settings Worth Knowing

These settings live in Chrome, not in Nav — but they have a bigger impact on daily workflow than most of Nav’s own toggles.

Move the side panel to the left. By default, Chrome places the side panel on the right. For most people, moving it left makes more sense — vertical tabs belong on the same side as where your eye starts reading. Go to Chrome menu → Settings → Appearance → Side panel → choose Left. Or right-click the side panel border and select the move option directly. This is the single setting that makes the biggest difference in how the panel feels integrated versus tacked-on.

Pin the extension button. Click the puzzle piece icon in the Chrome toolbar, find Nav, and pin it. After pinning, one click on the Nav icon in the toolbar opens and closes the side panel. Without pinning, you need to navigate through the extensions menu each time.

Reassign keyboard shortcuts. Go to chrome://extensions/shortcuts and find Nav. Chrome exposes the 4 main shortcuts for reassignment. If Alt+K conflicts with something else in your workflow — or if you want Alt+T, Ctrl+Shift+K, or any other combination — change it here. The reassignment persists across Chrome restarts.

Using Nav alongside Chrome’s native vertical tabs. Chrome shipped native vertical tabs to stable in Chrome 146 (March 2026), with the staged rollout reaching most users in April. Right-click any tab and choose “Show Tabs Vertically” (or Settings → Appearance → Tab strip position). They operate independently from Nav’s side panel. Both can be active simultaneously — Nav’s panel on one side, Chrome’s native vtabs on the other. The two features don’t conflict. If you want only Nav, turn Chrome’s native vertical tabs back off. If you want Chrome’s minimal vertical tab strip plus Nav’s full feature set in a side panel, run both.

Using Nav With SuperchargePerformance

The two extensions were built to complement each other. When both are installed:

• The sleeping tab indicator in Nav’s side panel shows which tabs Perf has suspended (moon icon on any discarded tab)
• The Alt+K command bar gains three performance commands: Suspend all tabs, Toggle whitelist, Toggle Perf
• Nav’s tab lock and Perf’s tab protection work in parallel — a locked tab in Nav also stays protected from Perf’s suspension logic

Neither extension requires the other. Each is fully functional standalone.

If you run a single workspace with under 20 tabs, the vertical tab panel and Alt+K cover most daily needs. If you manage multiple simultaneous projects, workspaces and time-travel snapshots become the load-bearing features. And if you’re coming from Arc — the command bar, peek preview, workspaces, and session recovery map almost directly to what you lost.

Zero telemetry, local by default, no account required. Optional Chrome-native workspace sync is opt-in and never touches our servers. All of the above is free.