This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Restoring windows to workspaces does not work

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by jonzn4SUSE

more options

Hello everyone,

I am a long time Firefox user and absolutely love it. First of all thank you for this amazing product.

I run Firefox with "Open previous windows and tabs" selected in my General settings. When I exit/restart Firefox, it reopens all my windows and their tabs. More importantly, it places them in their original desktop workspaces, BUT this only works reliably in Windows.

In Linux I have a problem in that some windows "remember" the workspace they were in, some however insist on reappearing on the "first" workspace.

I use Firefox with GNOME 42 and a fixed number of workspaces. (Gnome now has dynamic workspaces which are a bit similar to Mac OS, but I have turned that off.

Right now I have 6 windows open:

  • two of them (L1/L2) are Linux-related and are in workspace 1
  • two of them (D1/D2/D3) are Development-related and are in workspace 2
  • one of them (S1) is science-related and is in workspace 3

When I exit Firefox and restart it, all windows go back to their respective workspace except for D3 which appears in workspace 1 instead of 2.

Furthermore, if I open a new window (N1) and visit any site, then it exit/restart always makes it reappear in workspace 1.

This is very annoying. I have no idea how L1/L2/D1/D2/S1 have “stuck” to their original workspaces, but anything new I open seems to ignore the workspace it was placed in and insists on reappearing in workspace 1.

Is this something Firefox controls, or is it the role of the desktop (in this case GNOME) to do this?

Hello everyone, I am a long time Firefox user and absolutely love it. First of all thank you for this amazing product. I run Firefox with "Open previous windows and tabs" selected in my General settings. When I exit/restart Firefox, it reopens all my windows and their tabs. More importantly, it places them in their original desktop workspaces, BUT this only works reliably in Windows. In Linux I have a problem in that some windows "remember" the workspace they were in, some however insist on reappearing on the "first" workspace. '''I use Firefox with GNOME 42 and a fixed number of workspaces'''. (Gnome now has dynamic workspaces which are a bit similar to Mac OS, but I have turned that off. Right now I have 6 windows open: * two of them (L1/L2) are Linux-related and are in workspace 1 * two of them (D1/D2/D3) are Development-related and are in workspace 2 * one of them (S1) is science-related and is in workspace 3 When I exit Firefox and restart it, all windows go back to their respective workspace except for D3 which appears in workspace 1 instead of 2. Furthermore, if I open a new window (N1) and visit any site, then it exit/restart always makes it reappear in workspace 1. This is very annoying. I have no idea how L1/L2/D1/D2/S1 have “stuck” to their original workspaces, but anything new I open seems to ignore the workspace it was placed in and insists on reappearing in workspace 1. Is this something Firefox controls, or is it the role of the desktop (in this case GNOME) to do this?

All Replies (4)

more options

See what happens in KDE. I have 6 desktops and all browsers open in their last desktop used.

Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20220607 KDE Plasma Version: 5.24.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.94.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 Kernel Version: 5.18.1-1-default (64-bit) Graphics Platform: X11 Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-4810MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz Memory: 31.0 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4600

more options

Well, I do not want to switch my desktop environment. I am just trying to understand whether this is a Firefox issue or a GNOME issue.

more options

A good test would be to try another desktop and see if you have the same issue. You can also try a different user account.

Modified by jonzn4SUSE

more options

Also download Firefox from Mozilla and see if you have the same issue. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release