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How to import OneTab to Tabwell

You have a OneTab list a few hundred URLs deep, collected over months of research, and none of it carries the tab groups you actually worked in — OneTab flattens everything to a single list and discards group membership. To import OneTab to Tabwell you do not rebuild that by hand: Tabwell ships a built-in OneTab importer that reads a OneTab export and brings the saved URLs across in two clicks, turning the list into a Tabwell snapshot you can restore. What does not come across is structure OneTab never stored — there are no groups in a OneTab list to carry over — so the import gives you back the URLs, and from there you arrange them into Chrome tab groups and snapshot them with full group fidelity going forward. The importer is a Tabwell Pro feature, available during the 14-day Pro trial every install starts with, and the whole migration runs locally: the imported snapshot is written to IndexedDB on your device, with no account and nothing leaving the machine. This guide walks the migration step by step, covers what carries over and what you rebuild, and explains how the importer is gated.

What a OneTab list actually contains

OneTab stores a saved session as a flat list of tab URLs. That is its whole model: it collapses your open tabs into one page of links to free memory, and in doing so it discards group membership — the Chrome tab group a tab belonged to, the group's title, its color, and whether it was collapsed are not recorded. So before you migrate, set expectations: an import brings the URLs across, not a group layout, because OneTab never kept one. The structure is something you rebuild once in Tabwell, after which Tabwell preserves it on every save and restore.

Migrating from OneTab to Tabwell in two clicks

The migration uses Tabwell's built-in OneTab importer — there is no manual copy-paste and no third-party converter. Work through it in order:

  1. Install Tabwell from the Chrome Web Store and pin it to the toolbar. Every install starts with a 14-day Pro trial, which is what makes the importer available.
  2. In OneTab, export your saved tabs to a file using OneTab's own export option.
  3. Open Tabwell, open the importer, and choose OneTab as the source.
  4. Load the OneTab export. The saved URLs come across in two clicks and land as a Tabwell snapshot you can open from the side panel.
  5. Arrange the imported tabs into Chrome tab groups and save them — from here Tabwell records each group's title, color, and collapsed state through the chrome.tabGroups API, so the layout survives the next save and restore.

What carries over and what you rebuild

The URLs and their titles carry over — that is the part worth migrating, since it is the research you accumulated in OneTab. Group structure does not, because, as above, OneTab never stored it. That is not a Tabwell limitation; it is the gap between a flat list and a session record. Once the import lands as a snapshot, you group the tabs the way you want, and Tabwell's snapshot keeps that grouping with full fidelity going forward. For the grouping mechanics, see the guide on saving Chrome tab groups; for getting a snapshot back on screen, see the restore guide linked below.

How the importer is gated

The built-in OneTab importer is a Tabwell Pro feature. Every install starts with a 14-day Pro trial and no credit card, so you can run the migration on day one before you decide anything. After the trial, the Free tier keeps your latest 5 snapshots with manual save and restore and a 60-minute auto-snapshot; Pro lifts the 5-snapshot cap, indexes every saved tab for full-text search, auto-snapshots every 5 minutes, and is what keeps the importer enabled — $3.99/month, $29/year, or $19 one-time for the first 1,000 Founders buyers ($59 after).

FAQ

Is the OneTab importer free?

The built-in OneTab importer is a Tabwell Pro feature, but every install starts with a 14-day Pro trial and no credit card, so you can run the full migration during the trial at no cost. After the trial, keeping the importer enabled is part of Pro. The Free tier still lets you manually save and restore your latest 5 snapshots.

Do my OneTab groups come across when I import?

OneTab stores a flat list of URLs and discards tab group membership, so there are no groups in the export to bring over. The import carries the saved URLs and titles, and you regroup them in Tabwell. From then on Tabwell preserves each group's title, color, and collapsed state on every save and restore.

How do I import a OneTab list into Tabwell?

Export your saved tabs from OneTab to a file, then open Tabwell's built-in importer and choose OneTab as the source. Load the export and the URLs come across in two clicks as a Tabwell snapshot. No manual copy-paste or third-party converter is involved.

How much does Tabwell cost after the trial?

Every install includes a 14-day Pro trial with no credit card. After that, Free keeps your latest 5 snapshots; Pro is $3.99/month, $29/year, or a one-time $19 Founders license for the first 1,000 buyers ($59 after). Refunds are 30-day, no questions asked.

Which Chrome version do I need to migrate from OneTab?

Chrome 114 or newer, because Tabwell uses the chrome.sidePanel API introduced in that release. The import itself works the same on any supported version. Edge and other Chromium browsers may run it but are not the supported target, and Firefox and Safari are not supported.

Where do my imported tabs end up after migrating from OneTab?

The import lands as a Tabwell snapshot written to IndexedDB on your own device via dexie. Tab URLs and titles never leave the machine, and no account or signup is required. The only network call Tabwell makes is a license check to Polar, which carries no tab data.