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I don't want my recently closed tabs to be saved... Any way to prevent this?

  • 3 replies
  • 11 have this problem
  • 187 views
  • Last reply by drubacca117

drubacca117
drubacca117
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It has been a long time since I have used Firefox (got a Macbook, and for some reason just used Safari for a long time), so please forgive me if I am just missing something in the Firefox settings.

Anywho, I have Firefox set up to not remember my history because I like the privacy it offers. I think it is odd that I have it set up to delete my history, yet when you go to "History", it keeps a list of all my closed tabs... Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having the browser not save my history?

Is there a way to prevent Firefox from keeping this list of my recently closed tabs?

It has been a long time since I have used Firefox (got a Macbook, and for some reason just used Safari for a long time), so please forgive me if I am just missing something in the Firefox settings. Anywho, I have Firefox set up to not remember my history because I like the privacy it offers. I think it is odd that I have it set up to delete my history, yet when you go to "History", it keeps a list of all my closed tabs... Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of having the browser not save my history? Is there a way to prevent Firefox from keeping this list of my recently closed tabs?

Chosen solution

hello drubacca117, private browsing (aka "never remember history") means that firefox won't write any history data to your harddisk. as long as the browser is open it will store those recently closed tabs in the RAM in order to restore them quickly if needed - if you don't like this feature you can turn it off this way: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preferences named browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo and browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo. double-click it and change their value to 0 and restart the browser once.

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All Replies (3)

philipp
philipp
  • Moderator
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Chosen Solution

hello drubacca117, private browsing (aka "never remember history") means that firefox won't write any history data to your harddisk. as long as the browser is open it will store those recently closed tabs in the RAM in order to restore them quickly if needed - if you don't like this feature you can turn it off this way: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preferences named browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo and browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo. double-click it and change their value to 0 and restart the browser once.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Note that Firefox keeps a list of one closed window even with browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo set to 0, so you may have to open another window with one tab and close this window to purge websites from this list.

See also the browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab pref on the about:config page.

drubacca117
drubacca117 Question owner
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Thank you for the replies, it was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you again!