Chrome: open new tabs beside the current one

On my Mac, Chrome’s ⌘T puts new tabs at the end. I wanted them beside the tab I was using, without another extension. I already use Hammerspoon, so I added a Chrome-only shortcut.

With B active:

Before: A | B | C
⌘T:     A | B | New | C

The new tab is selected. This changes ⌘T; the + button keeps its usual behavior.

Hammerspoon setup

The full code and setup instructions are also on GitHub Gist.

With Hammerspoon installed, save this as ~/.hammerspoon/chrome-tabs.lua:

-- Chrome: Cmd-T opens and selects a tab immediately after the active tab.
local chromeBundleID = "com.google.Chrome"
local log = hs.logger.new("chrome-tabs", "info")

chromeNewTabHotkey = hs.hotkey.new({"cmd"}, "t", function()
    local ok, _, details = hs.osascript.applescript([[
        tell application "Google Chrome"
            if (count of windows) = 0 then
                make new window
            else
                tell front window
                    set currentIndex to active tab index
                    make new tab at after tab currentIndex with properties {URL:"chrome://newtab/"}
                    set active tab index to currentIndex + 1
                end tell
            end if
        end tell
    ]])
    if not ok then
        log.e(hs.inspect(details))
        hs.alert.show("No se pudo abrir la pestaña de Chrome. Consulta la consola de Hammerspoon.")
    end
end)

local function updateHotkey()
    local app = hs.application.frontmostApplication()
    if app and app:bundleID() == chromeBundleID then
        chromeNewTabHotkey:enable()
    else
        chromeNewTabHotkey:disable()
    end
end

-- Retain the watcher and hotkey across garbage collection.
chromeTabWatcher = hs.application.watcher.new(function(_, event)
    if event == hs.application.watcher.activated
        or event == hs.application.watcher.deactivated then
        updateHotkey()
    end
end)
chromeTabWatcher:start()
updateHotkey()

Add this line to your existing ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua:

dofile(hs.configdir .. "/chrome-tabs.lua")

Choose Hammerspoon → Reload Config. If macOS asks, allow Hammerspoon to control Chrome.

How it works

Lua handles the shortcut and watches which app is active. The English-looking code inside [[ ... ]] is AppleScript stored as a string. hs.osascript.applescript runs it to control Chrome. active tab index is the selected tab’s position, counting from 1.

I checked the tab order in Chrome and repeated the test after reloading. The shortcut also disabled correctly outside Chrome.