Array
Mandatory No Manifest version 2 or higher Example
"permissions": [
"webRequest"
]
Use the permissions
key to request special powers for your extension. This key is an array of strings, and each string is a request for a permission.
If you request permissions using this key, then the browser may inform the user at install time that the extension is requesting certain privileges, and ask them to confirm that they are happy to grant these privileges. The browser may also allow the user to inspect an extension's privileges after installation. As the request to grant privileges may impact on users' willingness to install your extension, requesting privileges is worth careful consideration. For example, you want to avoid requesting unnecessary permissions and may want to provide information about why you are requesting permissions in your extension's store description. More information on the issues you should consider is provided in the article Request the right permissions.
For information on how to test and preview permission requests, see Test permission requests on the Extension Workshop site.
The key can contain three kinds of permissions:
host_permissions
manifest key for Manifest V3 or higher.)activeTab
permissionNote: How you request host permissions depends on whether you want them at install time or runtime and which manifest version your extension is using.
permissions
) manifest key.optional_permissions
manifest key.host_permissions
manifest key.optional_host_permissions
manifest key.Host permissions are specified as match patterns, and each pattern identifies a group of URLs for which the extension is requesting extra privileges. For example, a host permission could be "*://developer.mozilla.org/*"
.
The extra privileges include:
url
, title
, and favIconUrl
properties of tabs.Tab
objectswebRequest
API for these hostscookies
API, as long as the "cookies"
API permission is also included.In Firefox, from version 56 onwards, extensions automatically get host permissions for their own origin, which is of the form:
moz-extension://60a20a9b-1ad4-af49-9b6c-c64c98c37920/
where 60a20a9b-1ad4-af49-9b6c-c64c98c37920
is the extension's internal ID. The extension can get this URL programmatically by calling extension.getURL()
:
browser.extension.getURL("");
// moz-extension://60a20a9b-1ad4-af49-9b6c-c64c98c37920/
API permissions
API permissions are specified as keywords, and each keyword names a WebExtension API that the extension would like to use.
These permissions are available in Manifest V2 and above unless otherwise noted:
activeTab
alarms
background
bookmarks
browserSettings
browsingData
captivePortal
clipboardRead
clipboardWrite
contentSettings
contextMenus
contextualIdentities
cookies
debugger
declarativeNetRequest
declarativeNetRequestFeedback
declarativeNetRequestWithHostAccess
devtools
(This permission is granted implicitly when the devtools_page
manifest key is present.)dns
downloads
downloads.open
find
geolocation
history
identity
idle
management
menus
menus.overrideContext
nativeMessaging
notifications
pageCapture
pkcs11
privacy
proxy
scripting
search
sessions
storage
tabGroups
tabHide
tabs
theme
topSites
unlimitedStorage
webNavigation
webRequest
webRequestAuthProvider
(Manifest V3 and above)webRequestBlocking
webRequestFilterResponse
webRequestFilterResponse.serviceWorkerScript
In most cases the permission just grants access to the API, with the following exceptions:
tabs
gives you access to privileged parts of the tabs
API without the need for host permissions: Tab.url
, Tab.title
, and Tab.faviconUrl
.
tabs
if you want to include url
in the queryInfo
parameter to tabs.query()
. The rest of the tabs
API can be used without requesting any permission.webRequestBlocking
enables you to use the "blocking"
argument, so you can modify and cancel requests.
downloads.open
lets you use the downloads.open()
API.
tabHide
lets you use the tabs.hide()
API.
This permission is specified as "activeTab"
. If an extension has the activeTab
permission, then when the user interacts with the extension, the extension is granted extra privileges for the active tab only.
"User interaction" includes:
The extra privileges are:
Tab.url
, Tab.title
, and Tab.faviconUrl
.The intention of this permission is to enable extensions to fulfill a common use case, without having to give them very powerful permissions. Many extensions want to "do something to the current page when the user asks".
For example, consider an extension that wants to run a script in the current page when the user clicks a browser action. If the activeTab
permission did not exist, the extension would need to ask for the host permission <all_urls>
. But this gives the extension more power than it needs: it could now execute scripts in any tab, any time it likes, instead of just the active tab and only in response to a user action.
Note: You can only get access to the tab/data that was there, when the user interaction occurred (e.g., the click). When the active tab navigates away (e.g., due to finishing loading or some other event), the permission does not grant you access to the tab anymore.
The activeTab
permission enables scripting access to the top level tab's page and same origin frames. Running scripts or modifying styles inside cross-origin frames may require additional host permissions. Of course, restrictions and limitations related to particular sites and URI schemes are applied as well.
Usually the tab that's granted activeTab
is just the currently active tab, except in one case. The menus
API enables an extension to create a menu item which is shown if the user context-clicks on a tab (that is, on the element in the tabstrip that enables the user to switch from one tab to another).
If the user clicks such an item, then the activeTab
permission is granted for the tab the user clicked, even if it's not the currently active tab (as of Firefox 63, Firefox bug 1446956).
There are two permissions which enables the extension to interact with the clipboard:
clipboardWrite
Write to the clipboard using Clipboard.write()
, Clipboard.writeText()
, document.execCommand("copy")
or document.execCommand("cut")
clipboardRead
Read from the clipboard using Clipboard.read()
, Clipboard.readText()
or document.execCommand("paste")
See Interact with the clipboard for more details.
Unlimited storageThe unlimitedStorage
permission:
storage.local
API "permissions": ["*://developer.mozilla.org/*"]
In Manifest V2 only, request privileged access to pages under developer.mozilla.org
.
Request access to the privileged pieces of the tabs
API.
"permissions": ["*://developer.mozilla.org/*", "tabs"]
In Manifest V2 only, request both of the above permissions.
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