Match patterns
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The page you're viewing describes extensions using Manifest V2. Now that Manifest V3 has launched, we strongly recommend that you use it for any new extensions that you create.
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,
httporfileor*Note: Access tofileURLs isn't automatic. The user must visit the extensions management page and opt in tofileaccess for each extension that requests it.host—for example,
www.google.comor*.google.comor*; if the scheme isfile, there is no host partpath—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.
| Pattern | What it does | Examples of matching URLs |
|---|---|---|
http://*/* | Matches any URL that uses the http scheme | http://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 /foo | http://example.com/foo/bar.html http://www.google.com/foo |
https://*.google.com/foo*bar | Matches 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 bar | https://www.google.com/foo/baz/bar https://docs.google.com/foobar |
http://example.org/foo/bar.html | Matches the specified URL | http://example.org/foo/bar.html |
file:///foo* | Matches any local file whose path starts with /foo | file:///foo/bar.html file:///foo |
http://127.0.0.1/* | Matches any URL that uses the http scheme and is on the host 127.0.0.1 | http://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 pattern | Why it's bad |
|---|---|
http://www.google.com | No 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:/bar | Missing scheme separator ("/" should be "//") |
foo://* | Invalid scheme |
Some schemes are not supported in all contexts.
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