How to Save and Restore Browser Tabs and Sessions in Chrome, Edge and Firefox

Browsers crash, updates restart them, and sometimes you close the wrong window. If that window held an afternoon of research — twenty tabs of sources, a half-written comparison, a booking you hadn't finished — getting it back matters. Here's what each browser can do on its own, where that stops, and how a session manager fills the gaps.

Built-in options in each browser

Chrome

• Reopen closed tab or window: Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on Mac) reopens the last closed tab or window, repeatedly.
• History → Recently closed lists closed windows with their tab count.
• Settings → On start-up → Continue where you left off reopens your last session after a restart.
• Bookmark all tabs: Ctrl+Shift+D saves the window into a bookmark folder.

Edge

• The same Ctrl+Shift+T and Recently closed list as Chrome.
• Settings → Start, home, and new tabs → Open tabs from the previous session.
• Collections can hold pages, but you add them one by one or via “Add all tabs to a new collection”.

Firefox

• Ctrl+Shift+T and History → Recently closed windows.
• Settings → General → Open previous windows and tabs.
• History → Restore previous session after a restart.
• Bookmark all tabs from the tab context menu.

Where the built-in tools fall short

• They only remember the recent past. Recently closed lists are short and are cleared over time.
• No names. You can't keep “Client A research” and “Tax return” as separate sessions to reopen whenever you like.
• Crashes and profile problems can wipe the restore data along with the session.
• Bookmark folders are frozen. Updating a saved set of tabs means deleting and re-saving.
• Tab groups are only partly preserved across all of these.
• No sync of sessions between computers in a way you control.

Using a session manager

Super Session Manager is a free extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge that turns windows into named sessions you can reopen, update and back up. It's built by the same developer as Web Archive Viewer.

1. 1

   Save a window

   Open the popup, type a name and save. Click the tab count first to preview every tab and remove the ones you don't want.

2. 2

   Restore it later

   One click reopens the session in a clean window with the original tab order. Sessions over 20 tabs restore with tabs asleep until you click them, so an 80-tab restore doesn't freeze your computer.

3. 3

   Keep it up to date

   Add the current window or a single tab to an existing session, or replace its tabs with what's open now. Saving under a name you've used never overwrites — the new one becomes “Name (2)”.

4. 4

   Let it back you up

   Automatic snapshots save your open tabs every 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, with a live countdown to the next one. Free keeps 3 snapshots; Pro keeps up to 100.

More than saving: organising sessions

A note for researchers

Sessions keep your *tabs*. They don't freeze what those pages *said*. If a session is full of sources you'll cite later, archive the important pages too — then the content is safe even if the page changes. See how to archive a web page permanently and how to cite an archived page.

FAQ