Share via

restoring lost/missing tab groups

W R 0 Reputation points
2023-10-27T23:14:13.25+00:00

I lost an entire window full of grouped tabs as if they never existed and they aren't in my history. Everything is just gone. When I go to add a tab to a group, the groups I had been using are gone but some older groups I had quit using and closed are showing up as options to add tabs to instead. I spent a while getting everything organized just how I wanted and it's gone. I had a bunch of tabs I can't even find in history under one tab group. If this is how Edge is going to work then I'm done using this browser. Please help, nothing is working and I didn't accidentally close anything, I just opened up my laptop today and it's gone.

Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge
A Microsoft cross-platform web browser that provides privacy, learning, and accessibility tools.
2,369 questions

2 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. David Caple 15 Reputation points
    2024-09-18T07:44:05.2566667+00:00

    Windows 11 recently performed an update without asking permission (MS take note ... you should always ASK for permission and not hide behind a statement advising you will do it ... maybe users don't always get to see the statement as in this case!). As a result of the update Edge was closed with over 100 windows open. I didn't see a notice asking if I wanted to open the tabs when relaunched probably because I opened Edge from an email link and when I did notice the omissions Ctrl-Shift-T only opened closed tabs from the new session. I cannot find the tabs from the previous session anywhere other than in History but browser stats show over 6,000 pages opened in previous 30 days. Does MS expect me to go through each one 1 by 1 to find the 100 or so relevant to my research?! I have restart from previous session on. The tabs were all in named windows ... why doesn't MS make named windows recoverable? Any good software supplier would do so.

    So how do I now recover all that lost work? It's enough to make someone switch to a more reliable supplier who respects the value of a user's time.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
  2. Wenying Lu-MSFT 2,070 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2023-10-30T09:22:52.8066667+00:00

    Hi @W R ,

    Navigate to edge://settings/clearBrowsingDataOnClose and check if turn on the option Browsing history.

    If you didn't enable this option, you should be able to find them in your browsing history and restore them. Just use the shortcut key Ctrl+Shift+T. You can press as many as you can until your desired tabs are restored.

    Unfortunately, there's no feature yet to restore tab groups as a whole. Also, it would be better to set your Edge to pick up where you left off when Edge starts. Go to Settings > Start, home, and new tabs > and set the option to "Open tabs from the previous session"

    And also, I suggest using Collections or Favorites to save all the tabs that you'd like to reopen next time, and they won't get lost.

    Thanks for your cooperation.

    If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

    Regards,

    Wenying Lu

Your answer

Answers can be marked as Accepted Answers by the question author, which helps users to know the answer solved the author's problem.