Safari tab command center powered by Codex App Server for your menu bar.
See all your tabs organized by domain or AI-detected topics, track tab age, find duplicates, and manage tab overload — without leaving the menu bar.
I had 80+ Safari tabs open and no way to make sense of them. Safari doesn't track when you opened a tab, doesn't detect duplicates, and has no concept of grouping by topic. TabPilot gives me a live census in the menu bar, age tracking that persists across restarts, duplicate detection, and Codex-powered clustering. It turns tab chaos into something I can actually manage.
- Live tab count in the menu bar, updated every 5 seconds
- All tabs from all Safari windows in one scrollable popup
- Grouped by domain, sorted by count (largest domains first)
- Domain initial icons with consistent hash-based colors
- Click any tab to instantly switch to it in Safari
- Close individual tabs with confirmation (hover to reveal X)
- Search/filter by title or URL in real-time
- Age tracking persists across app restarts (
~/.tabpilot/tab_history.json) - Color-coded age badges: fresh (< 1 hour), warm (today), cooling (this week), stale (7+ days)
- Filter chips: All / Fresh / Stale / Duplicates
- Exact URL duplicate detection with orange badge count
- Bulk "Close N dupes" — keeps one of each URL, closes extras
- Bulk "Close N stale" — closes tabs older than 7 days
- Confirmation dialog before any bulk close operation
- "Cluster with AI" sends tab URLs + titles to a Codex app server
- AI groups tabs into 3-8 semantic clusters (e.g., "React Development", "Apartment Search", "Work Docs")
- Toggle between By Domain and AI Clusters views
- Re-cluster on demand when your tab set changes
- "Ask about your tabs..." input at the bottom of the popup
- Ask things like "find my Rust articles" or "which tabs are about machine learning?"
- Streaming markdown responses from Codex
- Dismiss responses with the X button when done
- Settings gear with sliders for window width, height, and AI response area
- All settings persist across app restarts via
@AppStorage
brew tap scasella/tap
brew install --cask tabpilot
open /Applications/TabPilot.appThe app is signed with Developer ID and notarized by Apple — no Gatekeeper warnings.
git clone https://github.com/scasella/TabPilot.git
cd TabPilot
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh
open TabPilot.appswiftc -parse-as-library -o TabPilot TabPilot.swift
./TabPilot- macOS 14+ (Sonoma or later)
- Safari running with at least one tab open
- Xcode Command Line Tools (for
swiftc)
- Grant automation permission — macOS will prompt you to allow TabPilot to control Safari. Accept the dialog, or enable it manually in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation > TabPilot > Safari.
- For AI features (optional) — Start a Codex app server:
Domain grouping, search, staleness, and duplicates all work without Codex.
codex app-server --listen ws://127.0.0.1:8080
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| See all tabs | Click the tab count in the menu bar |
| Find a tab | Type in the search bar — filters by title and URL |
| Switch to a tab | Click any tab row |
| Close a tab | Hover over a tab, click the X, confirm |
| Show only stale tabs | Click the "Stale" filter chip |
| Show only duplicates | Click the "Dupes" filter chip |
| Bulk close duplicates | With Dupes filter active, click "Close N dupes" |
| Bulk close stale tabs | With Stale filter active, click "Close N stale" |
| AI clustering | Click "Cluster with AI" (requires Codex server) |
| Ask about tabs | Type a question in "Ask about your tabs..." |
| Resize the window | Click the gear icon, adjust sliders |
| Quit | Click "Quit" at the bottom-right |
Single file: TabPilot.swift (1644 lines). No dependencies. No Xcode project. Just swiftc.
| Component | Lines | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
TPTheme |
25 | Dark theme color palette |
RawWebSocket |
170 | TCP-based WebSocket client (bypasses macOS permessage-deflate issue) |
SafariTab |
50 | Tab model — URL, title, age, domain, window/tab index |
TabCluster |
20 | AI cluster model — name, description, tab indices |
TabHistoryStore |
40 | JSON persistence for first-seen/last-seen timestamps |
SafariScanner |
180 | AppleScript-based tab polling, switch-to-tab, close-tab actions |
TabClusterer |
270 | Codex WebSocket integration — JSON-RPC, clustering, NL queries |
ContentView |
770 | Full popup UI — header, search, filters, tab list, footer |
TabPilotApp |
25 | MenuBarExtra entry point with tab count label |
| Operation | Time |
|---|---|
| Bulk read 80 tab URLs + titles | ~85ms |
| Full scan cycle (AppleScript + processing) | ~100ms |
| Poll interval | 5 seconds |
| Tab history JSON write | ~1ms |
Tab history is stored at ~/.tabpilot/tab_history.json:
{
"firstSeen": { "https://example.com": "2026-02-25T10:30:00Z" },
"lastSeen": { "https://example.com": "2026-02-25T14:00:00Z" }
}Settings (window dimensions) are stored in macOS UserDefaults.
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| "Automation permission denied" | System Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation > enable TabPilot > Safari |
| No tabs showing | Make sure Safari is running with at least one window and tab open |
| Tab count shows 0 | Wait 5 seconds for the first poll cycle, or relaunch |
| "Cannot connect to Codex" | AI features require a running Codex server. All other features work without it. |
| Close popover disappears | This was fixed — the close button now stays anchored even when the cursor moves |
| Window doesn't resize | Adjust sliders in the settings gear; changes apply immediately |
-
Polling: Every 5 seconds, TabPilot runs a single AppleScript that bulk-reads all tab URLs and titles from all Safari windows. This takes ~85ms for 80 tabs.
-
Age tracking: Each unique URL gets a
firstSeentimestamp on first encounter. These persist to disk, so tab age accumulates across app restarts. -
Domain grouping: URLs are parsed to extract domains, then tabs are grouped and sorted by group size.
-
Duplicate detection: Tabs with identical URLs are flagged. The count appears on the "Dupes" filter chip.
-
AI clustering (optional): Tab URLs + titles are sent to a Codex app server via raw TCP WebSocket (JSON-RPC protocol). The AI returns semantic cluster assignments as structured JSON.
-
NL queries (optional): Free-form questions are sent to Codex with the full tab list as context. Responses stream back with markdown formatting.
- Swift + SwiftUI — single-file, no dependencies
- MenuBarExtra with
.windowstyle for rich popup - NSAppleScript for Safari tab reading and control
- NWConnection (Network.framework) for raw TCP WebSocket to Codex
- @AppStorage for persistent user preferences
- JSON-RPC 2.0 for Codex protocol communication
- Compiles with
swiftc -parse-as-library— no Xcode required
MIT