how to view extensive list of "Recently Closed Tabs"
My session start-up option is to "Restore previous session", so whenever I close out the browser, the tabs that were still open will then open when reopen the browser. I usually keep the same 20ish tabs open since I know whenever I close the session, they will automatically pop up when I open it again. However, today I had a separate window open with one tab (which I did not realize), so I closed the main session, and subsequently that separate window with the one tab, so when I went to open the browser again, only that window with the one tab opened, and the window with the 20 tabs did not restore.
I went into my History and those tabs that I just closed were not there, even though I sorted them by "Last Visited". And by the time I discovered the "Recently Closed Tabs" section, I had already closed out of other tabs so the ones from the previous session were deleted.
Is there anyway I can view the tabs from earlier today that were open when I first launched Firefox, either through rearranging my history, or some other list of recently closed tabs?
Also, I did not have the tabs syncing to any device.
Thank you.
All Replies (9)
Did you find Recently Closed Windows ?
By default, Firefox remembers up to 3 closed windows. That should be here:
- "3-bar" menu button > Library > History > Recently Closed Windows
- "Library" toolbar button > History > Recently Closed Windows
- (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows
- keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+n
Hopefully if you don't open and close a lot of popups, it's not too late to get the important window back.
If it seems to be gone, next step:
Could you make a backup of your existing session history files? Here's how:
Do not exit Firefox, or if you closed it, don't re-open it.
(1) To open your profile folder...
If Firefox is still running:
You can open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, click the "Open Folder" (or "Show in Finder") button.
If Firefox is closed:
Type or paste the following into the Windows Run dialog or the system search box and press Enter to launch Windows Explorer:
%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
In that folder, do you see a semi-randomly-named folder? If so, click into it. If you find multiple such folders, find the one that was most recently updated.
(2) Copy out session history files
In your profile folder, double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location such as your Documents folder.
(3) What files did you find?
The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:
- recovery.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your currently live Firefox session (or, if Firefox crashed at the last shutdown and is still closed, your last session)
- recovery.baklz4: a backup copy of recovery.jsonlz4
- previous.jsonlz4: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
- upgrade.jsonlz4-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update
- various .js files from Firefox 55 or earlier
Could you take a look at what you have and the date/time of the various files to see whether you think any of them would have the missing tabs?
To preview the contents of a file, you can drag and drop it onto this page, then click Scrounge URLs: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/ffu/scrounger.html
That tool is on my site, so please let me know if it doesn't work for you.
Use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar to prevent issues caused by unnoticed or forgotten windows.
- "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
- Windows: File -> Exit
- Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
- Linux: File -> Quit
Thank you very much. Unfortunately I had already opened and closed too many windows, so the main window was already deleted by the time I checked.
However, I did view my sessionstore-backups folder - it had 3 files from today (later in the day, not the first time I opened Firefox when all of the tabs restored from yesterday) and a few that were labeled upgrade. I was able to recover the majority of my tabs from the upgrade file, but since that is from 2 weeks ago, the newest tabs were not in there.
if you have any other suggestions as to what files/folders etc may contain the session from this morning, then please let me know.
Thank you very much for your help.
Okay, one possibility would be that within the past two weeks, Windows 10 created a restore point containing a snapshot of your Firefox profile folder. Don't use system restore! That typically causes more problems. There are two programs you can use to export files from restore points. Here's the rundown:
(1) Set Windows to show hidden files and folders:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files
(2) Download and run one of these programs:
- ShadowExplorer: http://www.shadowexplorer.com/
- System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/
Within the most recent restore point shown in the program, you can explore along this path to see whether you can find a timely shadow copy of your profile:
\Users\your-user-name\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
(3) Within your profile folder:
(A) Check for a file named sessionstore.jsonlz4 at the main level of the folder, and (B) Double-click into sessionstore-backups
Export any recent files you want to check to a convenient location such as your currently live desktop (not the desktop inside the restore point).
Did you find anything promising for possible restoration or scrounging?
Unfortunately not. I did run the Shadow Explorer program, but there isn't any recent sessions in either the main folder or the sessionstore-backups.
So no History showing either?
Unfortunately, it is not appearing in my history section at all. All thereafter tabs from browsing sessions and different windows are displayed in History though.
See also some session related extensions:
Thank you for the links to the extensions. Can you please tell me how I use them to view my history/session tabs from the morning of 11/29? Thank you.