Desaturate Favicons

Favicons—originally “favorites icons”—are the small icons that appear next to the page title inside a tab in Google Chrome.

Many companies choose to utilize this icon as a way to show off their logo or brand. As such, they’re often colorful and bold.

In an effort to provide a more minimalist, distraction-free, browsing experience, this extension desaturates the tab icons for all but the active tab.

In other words, all of the background tabs will appear in grayscale (“black and white”). When you switch which tab you’re viewing, the tab you were just viewing will see its icon switch to grayscale, and the new one you’re viewing will go back to full color.

The extension has no settings. There’s nothing to do. Just install it and it’ll start working right away. If you ever want the full color of icons to return, simply uninstall the extension.