Opening a new browser window in a new tab can be done easily in JavaScript.

Modern web browsers provide a simple API that creates an interface called the window object.

Since the goal is to open a new location in the current browser window, we need to utilize the window interface’s open() method.

The window.open() method takes three parameters: the first being the URL, the second being the window name, and the third being the window features.

If we pass the value of ‘_blank’ as the window name (second parameter), the browser will know to open the URL in a new tab.

Note: It may seem like the 3rd parameter would be where we would want to specify ‘_blank’ as it seems like it would be considered to be a “window feature,” but that parameter actually exists to pass “name=value” pairs to the new window. This utilization of the window.open() method is very rare and is unlikely to be needed outside of websites that use frames.

Open a New Tab with JavaScript Example

This is a straightforward example that will open the URL specified as the first parameter in a new tab.

window.open('https://actualwizard.com', '_blank');

The first example was a little bit generic, so here’s an example of pressing a button to open the URL in a new tab.

<script>
function open_url () {
    window.open('https://actualwizard.com', '_blank');
}
</script>
<button onclick="open_url()">Open URL in a New Tab</button>

Code Demo:

Open URL in a New Tab