In case you're mad at yourself for closing your precious window with all the right tabs opened, note that Firefox allows to reopen recently closed windows
I generally have a "home" Firefox window with my most used tabs pinned. Sometimes I close it before another window, so I was frustrated to "lose" it and having to redo my pins. But recently I discovered this feature. Joy!
How would people function without knowing this?? Maybe I'm just young, but this has been a thing as far back as I can remember (maybe 2010 or so), on all browsers I've used (Safari, Chrome, Firefox).
yeah if I did ctrl-shift-T and didn't get my tab back on a modern browser I'd assume it was a bug lol
This about reopening entire Windows that you closed, which you can undo since version 116, released August 1.
Nope, this feature has existed forever. They just changed the shortcut, previously it was Ctrl-shift-T for re-opening the last closed tab and Ctrl-shift-N for re-opening the last closed window.
Ohh, this makes much more sense. Thanks!
Yup, I've been using Ctrl-shift-N for years, so long that I don't recall it ever not being a thing. Basically, as soon as I needed to reopoen a closed window, I just added "shift" to do the opposite of opening a new window and it worked.
Uh, no, it's certainly much older than that. I know because I have literally used it.
This has to be something else.
Edit: yeah, it's not a new addition. It's under "changes" in the patch notes. Big difference.
You could already do that; it just was a separate keyboard shortcut/menu item before.
ah neat! :D
Yeah! That still works for tabs it looks like, but you have to do Ctrl+shift+N to get closed windows back.
It got removed from chrome a while ago. Have to use an extension for it.What are you talking about? I used it like 2 days ago last time, no plugins. Not sure if there's a hotkey for reopening a closed window (ctrl shift T?), but you can find it from the menu in upper right corner of the browser.
Yeah, same here. I use it fairly regularly because I'm a dumbass who closes the wrong window all the time
I actually checked and nope, it's not there. Been like a year since this? what the fuck?
EDIT: I'm a moron. What happened is that before you could reopen one by right clicking any tab and clicking the option, but that option was removed. I never did the "click the empty space after the tabs" thing because I normally run 50 tabs at the same time.
That's terrible. I'm so sorry.
Ctrl+Shift+T anywhere.
Ctrl-Shift-T for the last tab closed, Ctrl-Shift-N for the last window closed
Just checked, it appears ctrl+shit+T will also reopen a window if the last closed tab was on it.
You can just keep pressing it to reopen as many closed tabs as you need.
"shit" is my new favourite key from now on
Hm, was that always the case? I seem to remember me trying to check this years ago and it didnt work then
Nope, it was literally added this month :) See https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/116.0/releasenotes/
"In anticipation of upcoming changes" sounds ominous :D
Ctrl+Shift+T
Command + Shift + T on mac os, and Ctrl + Shift + T for Windows
You're welcome
Don't forget Ctrl + Shift + N
Or Ctrl+Shift+P for Firefox
I'm not a fan of that shortcut though:
It breaks the nice pattern.
Yeah it does break the pattern but there isn't much of an option that keeps everything super clean like tjat, unless it's something like ctrl alt N for a private window.
Yeah, I think that would be a better option, and then an eventual private tab would be intuitive too.
I save that one for secret fun time
lmao yeah this one is programmed deep into my muscle memory with how often i close the wrong tabs
or close a tab only to see something interesting right as it closes
That's last closed tab, not window.
Edit: actually it will reopen a window too if the last closed tab was on it.
I think that's a fairly recent change, I remember reading it in the changelogs. There was also something else relating to the feature, but now I don't remember
CTRL+SHFT+
t
Will reopen your last closed tab.
CTRL + SHIFT +
n
For a recently closed window.
niceee!!
Opens the terminal for me.
Literally every browser has this feature, it's not unique to Firefox.
Firefox didn’t have it for the longest time so a lot of people don’t know
So we're giving them props for something that's been available on chrome for a decade?
No, we are letting people know it’s there
Shift+ctrl+T is usually the keyboard shortcut to bring back closed tabs Shift+ctrl+N is to bring back closed windows (doesn't work on private browsing windows)
I've found that it does work in private sessions
I can still feel the pain when it’s 2 AM and you meant to Ctrl + Shift + T and you’re muscle memory leaks in and hits you with the Ctrl + Shift + W.
FYI there’s a confirm close option that will mitigate this terrible scenario, for anyone that’s been there before.
Or just Ctrl+shift+N will reopen that window. It has been there for years, perhaps more than a decade, and is the perfect companion to Ctrl+N, just like Ctrl+shift+T is the perfect companion to Ctrl+T.
I have Ctrl + W and Crtl + Shift + T bound to my mouse for this reason.
You can just press CTRL+SHIFT+T and CTRL+SHIFT+N continually to reopen closed tabs and windows, respectively, in the order they were closed.
As someone who frequently has windows with 1000+ tabs, this feature has saved my bacon countless times.
This makes me feel understood.
Who needs bookmarks anyways :')
ctrl+shift+t
I highly recommend Tab Session Manager if you're a crazy person like me.
seconded, it's great for resuming learning sessions and stuff like that.
Being able to jump back into all the troubleshooting and stack overflow tabs whenever a problem reappears is great.
thanks, didn't know this one but seems highly helpful
Saved my ass many times.
itsa great extension for people with internet problems
It also persists through a reboot, so if you shutdown or reboot with tabs open, it will ask you to restore the previous session when you next start it after the boot.
If you didn't restore it, but didn't open any more tabs, you can close it again, reboot, etc, and this option will still work to get your tabs back when you're ready.
What about if it’s private browsing mode?
They aren't recoverable after the session ends.
Dang.
If you want them to be recoverable, then you've got a bit of a misunderstanding about what private browsing mode is for. Not saving history is basically its whole "thing."
Chrome crippling the reopen tab option(they removed from right click menu) is what drove me back to Firefox.
I'm so sorry you had to use chrome, hope your day gets better.
Not here to defend chrome, but Ctrl+Shift+T works on chrome as well still.
I don't use keyboard shortcuts. And the right click menu only has like 5 things, and that was the option I used the most. It was a pointless change.
Waht... I haven't used chrome in years. Unbelievable they'd remove that.
Oh yeah this feature is a godsend
I rely on this all too often...
How do you people make the screenshots of popups in Firefox? Every time I press
Print Screen
they just keep fading away.If you’re on windows use “snipping tool”
I think it's ALT + SHIFT + S. That is one thing windows gets right. Though I believe they made a new version that is a bit worse for some reason beyond a this mortal's understanding.
Win Shift S
Ctrl+shift+S will do Firefox's screenshots. Windows key + shift + s is the windows snipping tool to take a screenshot of anything (aside from hdcp content like trying to screenshot a Netflix video that's copy protected).
I'm using the app Screenshot with a delay on Gnome.
Only the last three or so windows though, so if you got a few pop-ups before you press that you might be screwed...
...unless you have backups of an old session file, then you can use this tool to restore a list of those tabs: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html
There is also this handy addon for saving backups of windows like that to a txt list of urls: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/urls-list/
I wish Firefox had a method to restore windows after a restart. Losing all my tabs across multiple windows due to work required updates is a huge pain.
This is literally a thing? You just go to options and tick General -> Startup -> Open previous windows and tabs. It is quite literally the first option in the interface. I only mean to be a slight bit rude, but did you not even take a cursory look through the options?
Don't worry about being rude. Spreading demeaning misinformation about free software, especially one as important for the Web as Firefox, should be frowned upon.
Personally, I'd like it to be able to do it sometimes without having to set it to happen every time. In other words, I'd like a "restore previous session" UI element in the history interface.
I should probably look into some of the extensions folks in this thread are talking about.
There is a "recently closed windows" section in the history area. You can get all your tabs back.
If you can use extensions, I use the Tab Session Manager extension. It has a ton of features too but the big one is auto saving your sessions so you can always restore it all after a restart.
It's funny, it does do this when Windows restarts outside of your control.
But if you manually trigger a reboot, it assumes you closed all your windows intentionally.
At least that's how it behaves for me
Force kill it, lol
Any idea why Brave does this by default? I didn't ask it to, but it always opens the ten or so tabs on restart
I don't understand this thread, this is exactly what I'm talking about in my OP.
I know this, but I'm peeved that when I shut my computer off with Firefox open, I have a 50/50 chance of it automatically bringing all my tabs back on the next launch.
It works until Firefox applies updates and the next time you open it it automatically loads a "what's new in Firefox" tab erasing your previous session. Then you're SOL unless there's some way around that.
After updates, mine always opens all of my tabs. Maybe check your settings.
I've not started a fresh session of Firefox in years tbh. Not sure why it is different for you.
For reference, holds true on my phone, desktop, sim desktop, programming laptop, hobby laptop, network testing laptop, media laptop, backup management laptop, steam deck, second steam deck, virtual red hat machine, virtual windows machine, and hackintosh. So, a wide variety of environments. Never experienced this issue.
Same here (tabs always restored). I'll do an update with Firefox open; eventually it'll make me restart it, but always, tabs are there.
You're being downvoted or something but it's same for me.
I love Firefox but every time I update it there's this page with "Yay now you're safe because you updated" that randomly can open as a new tab in my existing session or as a new window with a single tab and erase my previous session. And I hate it. Like, this page doesn't give me any useful information, I never asked for it, I can't turn it off, and that's not all of the problem, even more, this stupid page loses my information and undoes my work of opening and arranging my tabs the way I like.
@OP When you have continue session on, closing Firefox using burger menu->Quit restores all windows. I assume this will also keep the pins even without continue session.
Saved my butt a few times already.
Good tip, though I have just hidden the close button with userChrome.css. It does not protect against alt+f4, though..
I also like that its PDF viewer opens exactly at where I left it at.
In my FF I have set the "reopen all tabs that were there when I closed" option, so it never has been a problem
Does it work when you had two windows opened? Does it reopens both or only the last closed one?
It reopens all tab in a window, I'll need to test with two windows !
Even works with 200 tabs open.
I use this several times per day when I close the wrong tab (or window). :)
Try T
You're welcome
Uh, you can also use these things called bookmarks to save commonly accessed webpages… also this is a feature of literally every web browser since checks notes forever.