How to create a Google Chrome extension from a greasemonkey/user script

Follow these steps to create a chrome extension from your userscript

  • Create a folder for your extension
  • Place the greasmonkey/user script javascript file in this folder
  • Create a 128px * 128px icon for your extension and place in this folder
  • Create a file called manifest.json in this folder
    • example is below - replace the pinboard.in content with your details
{
  "name": "Pinboard.in clean up",
  "version": "0.1",
  "description": "Clean up the UI of pinboard.in",
  "icons": { "128": "pinboard128.png" },
  "content_scripts": [
   {
      "matches": ["http://www.pinboard.in/*","http://pinboard.in/*"],
      "js": ["pinboardin_clean_up.user.js"]
    }
   ]
}

Note

  • replace ‘pinboardin_clean_up.user.js’ with your js file and matches with which pages you want your script to work on
  • refer the chrome extensions developers wiki for more details on manifest.json  
  • Zip up this folder
  • Go to the Chrome extensions page: https://chrome.google.com/extensions
    • Sign in and click the ‘Publish your extension’ link on the botton left
  • Google will ask you to upload a zip file, just upload the zip file you created, follow the steps and your extension will be publish on the Chrome extensions page

Justin Kelly

Justin Kelly

Data Engineeer, Business Analytics, Web Developer, Library Technology specialising in PHP and Tableau

Based in Melbourne, Australia

Feel free to contact me justin@kelly.org.au or _justin_kelly