Quiet Tab

Overview

Quiet Tab is a small Chrome extension for people who keep Gmail open while they work. It strips the unread count from the tab title, so "Inbox (4)" reads "Inbox". The count comes back off every time Gmail writes it again, and your inbox itself is untouched.

It runs only on mail.google.com, asks Chrome for no permissions, and collects nothing. The whole extension is about 30 lines of code, open source under the MIT license, so you can read every line before you install it. Large counts are caught too, in the separators different languages use (1,234 or 1.234, and the non-breaking spaces some languages use).

Why I built it

I keep Gmail open all day, and every time the number in the tab ticked up, my attention went with it. I didn't want to close Gmail or stop getting mail. I wanted the number gone. So I wrote the smallest thing that does exactly that, and nothing else.

How it works

1. Add it to Chrome - one click from the Chrome Web Store 2. Open Gmail as usual - there is nothing to set up 3. Glance at the tab - Quiet Tab removes the "(number)" each time Gmail puts it back, right in your browser 4. Check mail on your schedule - the inbox shows everything when you open it

Feature highlights

• Hides the unread count - "Inbox (4)" becomes "Inbox" and stays that way as new mail arrives.
• No permissions - it asks Chrome for nothing and runs only on mail.google.com.
• Nothing collected - no analytics, no tracking, no account, and it never reads your email.
• Any language's numbers - catches large counts written as 1,234 or 1.234, with the non-breaking spaces some languages use, and digits in non-Latin scripts.
• Open source - about 30 lines under the MIT license, readable on GitHub.

Pricing

Free. There is no subscription and no paid tier.

Notes

• Privacy: Runs only on mail.google.com and sends nothing anywhere; the privacy policy is linked below.
• How it's built: One content script that watches the tab title and rewrites it in place.