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Match patterns

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You're viewing the deprecated Manifest V2 version of this article. See Manifest V3 - Match patterns for the MV3 equivalent.

The Chrome Web Store no longer accepts Manifest V2 extensions. Follow the Manifest V3 Migration guide to convert your extension to Manifest V3.

Host permissions and content script matching are based on a set of URLs defined by match patterns. A match pattern is essentially a URL that begins with a permitted scheme (http, https, file, or ftp, and that can contain '*' characters. The special pattern <all_urls> matches any URL that starts with a permitted scheme. Each match pattern has 3 parts:

  • scheme—for example, http or file or *

    Note: Access to file URLs isn't automatic. The user must visit the extensions management page and opt in to file access for each extension that requests it.
  • host—for example, www.google.com or *.google.com or *; if the scheme is file, there is no host part

  • path—for example, /*, /foo*, or /foo/bar. The path must be present in a host permission, but is always treated as /*.

Here's the basic syntax:

<url-pattern> := <scheme>://<host><path>
<scheme> := '*' | 'http' | 'https' | 'file' | 'ftp' | 'urn'
<host> := '*' | '*.' <any char except '/' and '*'>+
<path> := '/' <any chars>

The meaning of '*' depends on whether it's in the scheme, host, or path part. If the scheme is *, then it matches either http or https, and not file, ftp, or urn. If the host is just *, then it matches any host. If the host is *._hostname_, then it matches the specified host or any of its subdomains. In the path section, each '*' matches 0 or more characters. The following table shows some valid patterns.

Note: urn scheme is available since Chrome 91.

PatternWhat it doesExamples of matching URLs
http://*/*Matches any URL that uses the http schemehttp://www.google.com/
http://example.org/foo/bar.html
http://*/foo*Matches any URL that uses the http scheme, on any host, as long as the path starts with /foohttp://example.com/foo/bar.html
http://www.google.com/foo
https://*.google.com/foo*barMatches any URL that uses the https scheme, is on a google.com host (such as www.google.com, docs.google.com, or google.com), as long as the path starts with /foo and ends with barhttps://www.google.com/foo/baz/bar
https://docs.google.com/foobar
http://example.org/foo/bar.htmlMatches the specified URLhttp://example.org/foo/bar.html
file:///foo*Matches any local file whose path starts with /foofile:///foo/bar.html
file:///foo
http://127.0.0.1/*Matches any URL that uses the http scheme and is on the host 127.0.0.1http://127.0.0.1/
http://127.0.0.1/foo/bar.html
*://mail.google.com/*Matches any URL that starts with http://mail.google.com or https://mail.google.com.http://mail.google.com/foo/baz/bar
https://mail.google.com/foobar
urn:*Matches any URL that starts with urn:.urn:uuid:54723bea-c94e-480e-80c8-a69846c3f582
urn:uuid:cfa40aff-07df-45b2-9f95-e023bcf4a6da
<all_urls>Matches any URL that uses a permitted scheme. (See the beginning of this section for the list of permitted schemes.)http://example.org/foo/bar.html
file:///bar/baz.html

Here are some examples of invalid pattern matches:

Bad patternWhy it's bad
http://www.google.comNo path
http://*foo/bar'*' in the host can be followed only by a '.' or '/'
http://foo.*.bar/baz If '*' is in the host, it must be the first character
http:/barMissing scheme separator ("/" should be "//")
foo://*Invalid scheme

Some schemes are not supported in all contexts.

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