Important: Chrome will be removing support for Chrome Apps on all platforms. Chrome browser and the Chrome Web Store will continue to support extensions. Read the announcement and learn more about migrating your app.
Chrome APIs
Chrome provides apps with many special-purpose APIs like
chrome.runtime and chrome.alarms.
Stable APIs
| Name | Description | Since |
|---|---|---|
| accessibilityFeatures | Use the chrome.accessibilityFeatures API to manage Chrome's accessibility features. This API relies on the ChromeSetting prototype of the type API for getting and setting individual accessibility features. In order to get feature states the extension must request accessibilityFeatures.read permission. For modifying feature state, the extension needs accessibilityFeatures.modify permission. Note that accessibilityFeatures.modify does not imply accessibilityFeatures.read permission. |
37 |
| alarms | Use the chrome.alarms API to schedule code to run periodically or at a specified time in the future. |
35 |
| app.runtime | Use the chrome.app.runtime API to manage the app lifecycle. The app runtime manages app installation, controls the event page, and can shut down the app at anytime. |
35 |
| app.window | Use the chrome.app.window API to create windows. Windows have an optional frame with title bar and size controls. They are not associated with any Chrome browser windows. See the Window State Sample for a demonstration of these options. |
35 |
| audio | The chrome.audio API is provided to allow users to get information about and control the audio devices attached to the system. This API is currently only implemented for ChromeOS. |
59 |
| bluetooth | Use the chrome.bluetooth API to connect to a Bluetooth device. All functions report failures via chrome.runtime.lastError. |
37 |
| bluetoothLowEnergy | The chrome.bluetoothLowEnergy API is used to communicate with Bluetooth Smart (Low Energy) devices using the Generic Attribute Profile (GATT). |
37 |
| bluetoothSocket | Use the chrome.bluetoothSocket API to send and receive data to Bluetooth devices using RFCOMM and L2CAP connections. |
37 |
| browser | Use the chrome.browser API to interact with the Chrome browser associated with the current application and Chrome profile. |
42 |
| commands | Use the commands API to add keyboard shortcuts that trigger actions in your extension, for example, an action to open the browser action or send a command to the extension. | 35 |
| contextMenus | Use the chrome.contextMenus API to add items to Google Chrome's context menu. You can choose what types of objects your context menu additions apply to, such as images, hyperlinks, and pages. |
35 |
| documentScan | Use the chrome.documentScan API to discover and retrieve images from attached paper document scanners. |
44 |
| events | The chrome.events namespace contains common types used by APIs dispatching events to notify you when something interesting happens. |
35 |
| extensionTypes | The chrome.extensionTypes API contains type declarations for Chrome extensions. |
39 |
| fileSystem | Use the chrome.fileSystem API to create, read, navigate, and write to the user's local file system. With this API, Chrome Apps can read and write to a user-selected location. For example, a text editor app can use the API to read and write local documents. All failures are notified via chrome.runtime.lastError. |
35 |
| fileSystemProvider | Use the chrome.fileSystemProvider API to create file systems, that can be accessible from the file manager on Chrome OS. |
40 |
| gcm | Use chrome.gcm to enable apps and extensions to send and receive messages through the Google Cloud Messaging Service. |
35 |
| hid | Use the chrome.hid API to interact with connected HID devices. This API provides access to HID operations from within the context of an app. Using this API, apps can function as drivers for hardware devices. Errors generated by this API are reported by setting runtime.lastError and executing the function's regular callback. The callback's regular parameters will be undefined in this case. |
38 |
| i18n | Use the chrome.i18n infrastructure to implement internationalization across your whole app or extension. |
35 |
| identity | Use the chrome.identity API to get OAuth2 access tokens. |
35 |
| idle | Use the chrome.idle API to detect when the machine's idle state changes. |
35 |
| instanceID | Use chrome.instanceID to access the Instance ID service. |
46 |
| mdns | Use the chrome.mdns API to discover services over mDNS. This comprises a subset of the features of the NSD spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/discovery-api/ |
35 |
| mediaGalleries | Use the chrome.mediaGalleries API to access media files (audio, images, video) from the user's local disks (with the user's consent). |
35 |
| networking.onc | The Network connection configurations are specified following Open Network Configuration (ONC) specification. NOTE: Most dictionary properties and enum values use UpperCamelCase to match the ONC specification instead of the JavaScript lowerCamelCase convention. |
59 |
| notifications | Use the chrome.notifications API to create rich notifications using templates and show these notifications to users in the system tray. |
35 |
| permissions | Use the chrome.permissions API to request declared optional permissions at run time rather than install time, so users understand why the permissions are needed and grant only those that are necessary. |
35 |
| power | Use the chrome.power API to override the system's power management features. |
35 |
| printerProvider | The chrome.printerProvider API exposes events used by print manager to query printers controlled by extensions, to query their capabilities and to submit print jobs to these printers. |
44 |
| runtime | Use the chrome.runtime API to retrieve the background page, return details about the manifest, and listen for and respond to events in the app or extension lifecycle. You can also use this API to convert the relative path of URLs to fully-qualified URLs. |
35 |
| serial | Use the chrome.serial API to read from and write to a device connected to a serial port. |
35 |
| socket | Use the chrome.socket API to send and receive data over the network using TCP and UDP connections. Note: Starting with Chrome 33, this API is deprecated in favor of the sockets.udp, sockets.tcp and sockets.tcpServer APIs. |
35 |
| sockets.tcp | Use the chrome.sockets.tcp API to send and receive data over the network using TCP connections. This API supersedes the TCP functionality previously found in the chrome.socket API. |
35 |
| sockets.tcpServer | Use the chrome.sockets.tcpServer API to create server applications using TCP connections. This API supersedes the TCP functionality previously found in the chrome.socket API. |
35 |
| sockets.udp | Use the chrome.sockets.udp API to send and receive data over the network using UDP connections. This API supersedes the UDP functionality previously found in the "socket" API. |
35 |
| storage | Use the chrome.storage API to store, retrieve, and track changes to user data. |
35 |
| syncFileSystem | Use the chrome.syncFileSystem API to save and synchronize data on Google Drive. This API is NOT for accessing arbitrary user docs stored in Google Drive. It provides app-specific syncable storage for offline and caching usage so that the same data can be available across different clients. Read Manage Data for more on using this API. |
35 |
| system.cpu | Use the system.cpu API to query CPU metadata. |
35 |
| system.display | Use the system.display API to query display metadata. |
35 |
| system.memory | The chrome.system.memory API. |
35 |
| system.network | Use the chrome.system.network API. |
35 |
| system.powerSource | The chrome.system.powerSource API allows Chrome Kiosk Apps to query the state of connected power sources. |
69 |
| system.storage | Use the chrome.system.storage API to query storage device information and be notified when a removable storage device is attached and detached. |
35 |
| tts | Use the chrome.tts API to play synthesized text-to-speech (TTS). See also the related ttsEngine API, which allows an extension to implement a speech engine. |
35 |
| types | The chrome.types API contains type declarations for Chrome. |
35 |
| usb | Use the chrome.usb API to interact with connected USB devices. This API provides access to USB operations from within the context of an app. Using this API, apps can function as drivers for hardware devices. Errors generated by this API are reported by setting runtime.lastError and executing the function's regular callback. The callback's regular parameters will be undefined in this case. |
35 |
| virtualKeyboard | The chrome.virtualKeyboard API is a kiosk only API used to configure virtual keyboard layout and behavior in kiosk sessions. |
58 |
| vpnProvider | Use the chrome.vpnProvider API to implement a VPN client. |
43 |
| wallpaper | Use the chrome.wallpaper API to change the ChromeOS wallpaper. |
43 |
Dev APIs
These APIs are only available in the Chrome Dev channel:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| clipboard | The chrome.clipboard API is provided to allow users to access data of the clipboard. This is a temporary solution for chromeos platform apps until open-web alternative is available. It will be deprecated once open-web solution is available, which could be in 2017 Q4. |
Experimental APIs
Chrome also has experimental APIs, some of which will become supported APIs in future releases of Chrome.
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, watch this video: