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Cra

Help

How Cra works

Short guides to every part of the app, then the questions people ask most.

Getting started

Install Cra, bring your browser over and make it your default.

  1. Easiest: paste the one-line command from the download page into Terminal. It installs Cra in Applications and opens it, with no security prompts.
  2. Or download Cra.dmg and drag Cra to Applications. On first launch macOS says it could not verify the app: click Done, then System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.
  3. The first launch walks you through setting Cra as your default browser, turning on ad and tracker blocking, and importing from the browser you use now. Every step can be skipped.
  4. Press ⌘T and type where you want to go. Press ⌘, for Settings: search engine, auto-archive, Picture in Picture, Little Windows, extensions and shortcuts.

Spaces

One sidebar per project, each with its own colour.

  1. Create a space from the + at the bottom of the sidebar or by typing “space” in the command bar.
  2. Each space has its own pinned tabs and Today list. Favorites at the top are shared by every space.
  3. Switch with ⌃1 to ⌃9, ⌘⌥← and ⌘⌥→, or by clicking the emoji in the dock at the bottom.
  4. Edit a space’s name, colours and emoji from the command bar (“edit space”). One or two colours blend into the gradient; intensity and grain are adjustable.

Pinned tabs, Today, favorites and folders

Where a tab lives says how long it stays.

  1. New tabs open in Today, at the top by default. They archive on their own after the time set in Settings → Tabs.
  2. Press ⌘D to pin a tab. Pinned tabs keep a home URL: wander off following links, then choose Reset Pinned Tab to return.
  3. Rename any tab from its context menu or the command bar. The custom name wins over the page title.
  4. Drag a tab onto another to make a folder, or choose New Folder. Folders nest, move between spaces, and archive all their tabs at once when deleted.
  5. Add to Favorites puts a site in the grid at the top. Favorites are shared across spaces.
  6. ⌘S hides the sidebar. Move the pointer to the window’s left edge and it slides back in over the page until you move away.

The command bar

One box for tabs, archive, history, sites and actions.

  1. ⌘T opens the command bar for a new tab. ⌘L opens it to edit the current URL.
  2. Results come from open tabs, the archive, history, a bundled list of popular domains and every action in the app. Everything is computed on your Mac.
  3. Type a number followed by a dot, like “3.”, to jump to the third tab.
  4. The bar remembers what you picked for a query, so your usual choice rises to the top the next time you type the same prefix.

Split view

Up to four tabs side by side in one window.

  1. Press ⌃⇧= or type “split” in the command bar to open an empty pane beside the current tab, then type where to go. Repeat for up to four panes.
  2. Drag the gap between two panes to resize them. Choose Flip Split View Orientation to stack them vertically instead.
  3. A split lives in the sidebar as one row, so it comes back exactly as you left it, and archives like any tab.
  4. ⌃⇧- closes the focused pane. Separate Page from Split View turns it back into a tab of its own.

Little Windows

Links from other apps open small and leave no trace.

  1. Clicking a link in Mail, Slack or any other app opens it in a Little Window: a small window with no sidebar, so it does not add to your tabs.
  2. Close it with ⌘W when you are done; the page goes to the archive in case you need it again.
  3. Press ⌘O, or click the Open in button at the top, to move the page into a space as a Today tab. The page stays loaded.
  4. ⌥⌘N opens an empty Little Window. Turn the link routing off in Settings → Tabs if you want links in the main window.

Picture in Picture

Keep a video playing while you work.

  1. Choose View → Picture in Picture, type “pip” in the command bar, or right-click a video.
  2. The video floats in the top-right corner of the screen. Drag it anywhere and resize it from its edges.
  3. Hover it for close, back to the tab, play or pause, and 15-second skips.
  4. Switch away from a tab while its video plays and it pops out on its own; return to the tab and the video goes back. Turn this off in Settings → Tabs.

Extensions

Chrome extensions, in a menu in the toolbar.

  1. Open the Chrome Web Store from the extensions menu (the puzzle piece in the toolbar) and install as you would in Chrome.
  2. To use an extension you built or downloaded, choose Settings → Extensions → Add Unpacked Extension and pick the folder that holds manifest.json.
  3. Extensions you have in Chrome, Brave, Edge or another Chromium browser can come along when you import.
  4. Run an extension from the menu, or pin it so its icon sits in the toolbar. Removing one is in Settings → Extensions. Extensions load when Cra starts.

Archive, history and downloads

Closed is not gone.

  1. Closing a tab, clearing Today or letting a tab expire moves it to the archive.
  2. Press ⌘Y to open history and the archive. Search it, restore a tab, copy its link or remove it.
  3. Change when tabs archive in Settings → Tabs: 12 hours, 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days, or switch auto-archive off.
  4. ⇧⌘L opens the Library and ⇧⌘J the downloads list.

Importing from another browser

Spaces, tabs, passwords, sign-ins and extensions.

  1. Cra offers to import on first launch. Later, choose Import in the Cra menu or Settings → Advanced → Import from Another Browser.
  2. From Arc and Dia, Cra brings your spaces, pinned tabs, folders, favorites and archive. Spaces with the same name merge and tabs you already have are skipped, so it is safe to run again.
  3. From Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi and Chromium, each profile becomes a space with its bookmarks bar pinned and its last open tabs in Today. Passwords, sign-ins and extensions can come too; macOS asks once to unlock that browser’s saved data.
  4. From Firefox and Zen, Cra brings bookmarks and open tabs. For passwords, export them from Firefox (Settings → Passwords → ⋯ → Export Passwords) and drop the file in.
  5. Safari keeps its data locked away, so export it first (File → Export Browsing Data to File in Safari) and drop the file in. Bookmarks and passwords come along.
  6. Everything is read on your Mac and written into Cra’s own files. Nothing is uploaded.

Ad and tracker blocking

On by default, with nothing to configure.

  1. Cra cancels requests to more than 22,000 known ad and tracker domains before they load.
  2. Requests that belong to the site you are on are left alone, so logins and embedded content keep working.
  3. Turn it off or on in Settings → Privacy.
  4. The list combines AdAway’s default blocklist and Anudeep’s adservers list, and ships inside the app. Nothing is downloaded or reported.

Changing shortcuts

Every action is rebindable.

  1. Cra ships with Arc’s defaults. The full list is on the shortcuts page.
  2. Open Settings → Shortcuts, click a shortcut and press the new keys. Esc cancels, ⌫ removes it, and conflicts are flagged.
  3. Overrides are saved in ~/Library/Application Support/Cra/keybindings.json, so you can also edit or back them up by hand.
  4. Like Chrome, web pages get the first chance at shortcuts that are not reserved, so ⌘F in Google Docs still finds in the document.

Default browser, Dock and login

Make Cra the browser links open in.

  1. Settings → General → Set Cra as Default, then confirm in the macOS dialog. Type “default browser” in the command bar for the same thing.
  2. Add Cra to Dock and Open Cra at login are in the same place.
  3. Settings → Advanced → Warn before quitting asks before ⌘Q closes every window.

Scripting with cra://

Drive the app from a shell or another app.

  1. open "cra://action/newTab" runs any action id from the shortcuts page.
  2. open "cra://commandbar?query=github" opens the command bar with text; add &mode=edit to edit the current URL.
  3. open "cra://open?url=https://example.com&background=1" opens a URL, optionally without switching to it. Use &little=1 to open it in a Little Window.
  4. open "cra://import?source=arc&archive=1&settings=1" imports without the window.
  5. open "cra://dismiss" closes sheets, the command bar and the find bar.

Where your data lives

Plain files you can read, back up or delete.

  1. Everything is under ~/Library/Application Support/Cra. Settings → Advanced shows the path.
  2. The sidebar, spaces and archive are JSON files, with timestamped copies kept as a local safety net.
  3. keybindings.json holds your shortcut overrides. favicons holds cached site icons. chromium.log holds the engine log.
  4. The Chromium folder is a standard Chrome-style profile: history, cookies, saved passwords, extensions and cache for the pages you visit.
  5. Deleting the folder resets Cra completely.

Troubleshooting

The usual fixes.

  1. “Apple could not verify Cra is free of malware”: early access builds are not notarized yet. Click Done, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, click Open Anyway and confirm. Or install with the Terminal command on the download page, which skips this.
  2. A page misbehaves: ⌘⇧R forces a refresh ignoring the cache, and ⌘⌥I opens the same DevTools as Chrome. If a site breaks only in Cra, try it with ad and tracker blocking off in Settings → Privacy.
  3. An extension does not show up: extensions load when Cra starts, so quit and reopen Cra after adding one.
  4. The sidebar looks wrong after an import: quit Cra and restore one of the timestamped JSON copies in Application Support.
  5. Something else: open an issue on GitHub with the chromium.log from Application Support attached.

Questions, answered

Something missing? Open an issue on GitHub, ask in the discussions.

Yes. Cra is free and open source under the MIT licence.

See also the shortcuts, the privacy page and building from source.