Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

How to preserve the order of the opened tabs when opening all synced tabs

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 32 views
  • Last reply by manoja

more options

Hi, I'm migrating to a new PC and followed the below article to open all my currently synced tabs from the old machine on my new one: https://support.mozilla.org/bm/questions/1357426

The issue is that the on the new machine when I open all synced tabs, the order is reversed, i.e. my latest tabs that are on the right on the old machine are now on the left in my new machine. How do I tell open all tabs to keep the same order in the new machine? Any help is greatly appreciated..!

Thanks! manoja

Hi, I'm migrating to a new PC and followed the below article to open all my currently synced tabs from the old machine on my new one: https://support.mozilla.org/bm/questions/1357426 The issue is that the on the new machine when I open all synced tabs, the order is reversed, i.e. my latest tabs that are on the right on the old machine are now on the left in my new machine. How do I tell open all tabs to keep the same order in the new machine? Any help is greatly appreciated..! Thanks! manoja

Chosen solution

You can copy sessionstore.jsonlz4 from the old device to the new device to get all the tabs.

You can copy certain files with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to transfer or recover personal data. Note that best is to avoid copying a full profile folder.

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).


  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • favicons: favicons.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
  • logins.json (encrypted logins;32+) and key4.db (decryption key;58+) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
    key3.db support ended in 73+; to use key3.db in 58-72, make sure to remove key4.db
  • cert9.db (58+) for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)
Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

You can copy sessionstore.jsonlz4 from the old device to the new device to get all the tabs.

You can copy certain files with Firefox closed to the current profile folder to transfer or recover personal data. Note that best is to avoid copying a full profile folder.

You can use the button on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page (Root directory).


  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • favicons: favicons.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the Cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved autocomplete Form Data
  • logins.json (encrypted logins;32+) and key4.db (decryption key;58+) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
    key3.db support ended in 73+; to use key3.db in 58-72, make sure to remove key4.db
  • cert9.db (58+) for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words added to the spell checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other website specific data (Site Preferences)
  • sessionstore.jsonlz4 for open tabs and pinned tabs (see also the sessionstore-backups folder)
more options

Thanks cor-el for the detailed info. Copying the sessionstore.jsonlz4 file worked!

A bit more details on the step by step process that others may find useful: (This is on a PC)

  • The sessionstore.jsonlz4 is created only after you exit firefox. This tripped me up when I was looking for the file.

- on old machine, open firefox and go to about:profiles page and open "Root Directory" in file manager by clicking on "Open Folder" - exit firefox - you should now see sessionstore.jsonlz4 in the "Root Directory" that is open in the file manager window. - Transfer this sessionstore.jsonlz4 file to your new PC. - on new PC, open firefox and go to about:profiles page and open "Root Directory" in file manager by clicking on "Open Folder" - exit firefox - now copy the sessionstore.jsonlz4 file that was transferred from the old PC and overwrite the sessionstore.jsonlz4 in the "Root Directory" in file manager window - start firefox on new PC and all the tabs from the old PC should appear in the correct order

Regards, manoja