Supported APIs for Microsoft Edge extensions

When building extensions for the Microsoft Edge browser, you can use the following APIs.

API	Description
alarms	Schedule code to run periodically or at a specified time in the future.
bookmarks	Create, organize, and manipulate bookmarks.
browserAction	Use browser actions to place icons on the toolbar in Microsoft Edge. You can also use browser actions to add a tooltip, badge, or popup.
browsingData	Remove browsing data from a user's local profile.
commands	Add keyboard shortcuts that trigger actions in your extension. For example, an action to open the browser or send a command to the extension.
contentSettings	In general, content settings allow you to customize the behavior of Microsoft Edge on each site, instead of globally. Change settings that control whether websites can use features such as cookies, JavaScript, and plugins.
contextMenus	Add items to the context menu in Microsoft Edge. Menu items may apply to different objects, such as images, hyperlinks, and pages.
cookies	Query and modify cookies, and receive notifications when they change.
debugger	Attach to one or more tabs to instrument network interaction, debug JavaScript, change the DOM, change CSS, and so on. Use the debugger tabId to target tabs with sendCommand, and route events by tabId from onEvent callbacks.
declarativeContent	Take actions depending on the content of a page, without requiring permission to read the page content.
declarativeNetRequest	Provides more privacy by blocking or modifying network requests by specifying declarative rules. Allow extensions to modify network requests without intercepting the request and viewing the content.
desktopCapture	Capture the content of a screen, individual windows, or tabs.
devtools.inspectedWindow	Interact with the inspected window. For example, obtain the tab ID of pages, evaluate code, refresh pages, or obtain resources on a page.
devtools.network	Retrieve information about network requests displayed by the Developer Tools in the Network panel.
devtools.panels	Integrate your extension into the Developer Tools window UI by creating your own panels, accessing existing panels, or adding sidebars.
downloads	Programmatically start, monitor, manipulate, and search for downloads.
enterprise.hardwarePlatform	Get the manufacturer and model of the hardware platform where the browser runs. This API is only available to extensions installed by enterprise policy.
events	Common types used by APIs that raise events to notify you when an interesting event occurs.
extension	Any extension page can use the utilities of this API. It includes support for exchanging messages between extensions and content scripts, which is described in Message Passing.
extensionTypes	Contains type declarations for Microsoft Edge extensions.
fontSettings	Manage font settings in Microsoft Edge.
history	Interact with the browser's record of visited pages. You can add, remove, or query for URLs in the browser's history. To override the history page with your own version, navigate to Override Pages.
i18n	Implement internationalization across your whole app or extension.
idle	Detect when the machine's idle state changes.
management	Manage the list of installed or running extensions. It's useful for extensions that override the built-in New Tab page.
notifications	Create rich notifications using templates and display them in the system tray.
omnibox	Register keywords in the Microsoft Edge address bar, also known as the omnibox.
pageAction	Add icons to the Microsoft Edge toolbar, to the right of the address bar. Page actions are actions that can be taken on the current page, and aren't applicable to all pages. Page actions appear grayed out when inactive.
pageCapture	Save tabs as MHTML files.
permissions	Retrieve declared, optional permissions at runtime, instead of at install time. You can use this API to display needed and approved permissions to your users.
power	Override the system's power management features.
printerProvider	Use events to query printers, their capabilities, and to submit print jobs.
privacy	Control features in Microsoft Edge that affects a user's privacy. This API depends on the EdgeSetting prototype of types to get and set the configuration of Microsoft Edge.
proxy	Manage proxy settings for Microsoft Edge. This API depends on the EdgeSetting prototype of the types API to get and set the proxy configuration of Microsoft Edge.
runtime	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 convert the relative path of URLs to fully qualified URLs.
sessions	Query and restore tabs and windows from a browsing session.
storage	Store, retrieve, and track changes to user data.
system.memory	The system.memory API.
system.storage	Query information about storage devices. You can also receive notifications when storage devices are attached or detached.
tabCapture	Interact with tab media streams.
tabs	Interact with the browser's tab system to create, modify, and rearrange tabs.
topSites	Access the top sites, also called most visited sites, that are displayed on the new tab page. These sites don't include shortcuts customized by the user.
tts	Play synthesized text-to-speech (TTS).
ttsEngine	Implement a text-to-speech (TTS) engine using an extension. Extensions that register to use this API receive events that contain utterances to be spoken and other parameters. Extensions can then use any available web technology to synthesize and output speech, and send events back to the calling function to report the status.
types	Type declarations for Microsoft Edge.
webNavigation	Receive notifications about the status of navigation requests.
webRequest	Observe and analyze traffic. Intercept, block, or modify requests.
windows	Interact with browser windows to create, modify, and rearrange windows in the browser.

Unsupported extension APIs

Microsoft Edge doesn't support the following Extension APIs:

• chrome.gcm.
• chrome.identity.getAccounts.
• chrome.identity.getAuthToken - As an alternate, you can use launchWebAuthFlow to fetch an OAuth2 token to authenticate users.
• chrome.instanceID.

Additional considerations for supported APIs

• The user must be signed into Microsoft Edge using a Microsoft account (MSA) or Azure Active Directory account to use chrome.identity.getProfileUserInfo. If the user is signed into Microsoft Edge using an on-premises Active Directory account, the API returns null for the email and ID values.

  A Microsoft account (MSA) is an Outlook.com, Live.com, or Hotmail.com account.

• Microsoft Edge doesn't support extensions that use Chrome Web Store payments because it uses identity.getAuthtoken to request tokens for signed-in users. These tokens are sent to the REST-based licensing API.

Note

Portions of this page are modifications based on work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The original page is found here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.