chrome.* APIs

Contents

1. Supported APIs
   1. h3Name
2. Experimental APIs
   1. h3Name
3. API conventions
   1. h3Name
4. API reference
   1. Properties
      1. propertyName
   2. Methods
      1. methodName
   3. Events
      1. eventName
   4. Types
      1. id

Google Chrome provides APIs such as chrome.bookmarks and chrome.tab so that extensions can interact with the browser.

Supported APIs

Here are the supported chrome.* APIs:

• bookmarks
• browserAction
• extension
• i18n
• pageAction
• tabs
• windows

Experimental APIs

We'd like your feedback on the following experimental APIs:

• experimental.history
• experimental.processes

Caution: Don't depend on these experimental APIs. They might disappear, and they will change. Also, the extension gallery doesn't allow you to upload extensions that use experimental APIs.

To use an experimental API, you must specify the "experimental" permission in your extension's manifest, like this:

"permissions": [
  "experimental",
  ...
],

You must also specify the --enable-experimental-extension-apis flag when you launch the browser. On Windows, you can do this by modifying the properties of the shortcut that you use to launch Google Chrome. For example:

path_to_chrome.exe --enable-experimental-extension-apis

API conventions

Unless the doc says otherwise, methods in the chrome.* APIs are asynchronous: they return immediately, without waiting for the operation to finish. If you need to know the outcome of an operation, then you pass a callback function into the method. For more information, see the video Extension API Design.