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When shutting down, FF does not save tabs or ask if I want to save them.

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  • Last reply by Helper7677

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Several times recently, when shutting down, the small window asking if I want Firefox to save tabs does not appear, and the tabs are lost.

Several times recently, when shutting down, the small window asking if I want Firefox to save tabs does not appear, and the tabs are lost.

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One of the changes in Firefox 4: by default Firefox 4 does not display the "Save Tabs and Exit" warning message when closing multiple tabs, but it can be turned back on by changing some preferences.

  • Saving tabs was not removed from Firefox 4, but it works a bit differently.
    • By default, Firefox 4 will not ask to save tabs, but instead it will always save your tabs on exit. You can restore them next time by choosing "Restore Previous Session" from the History menu, or pressing the restore button on Firefox's default home page.
    • Note: This was a decision by the developers. On this forum, we are all uncompensated volunteers here to help other users. The developes/employees of Mozilla/Firefox rarely, if ever visit here.

To display the "Save Tabs and Exit" message when closing multiple tabs, you can do the following:

  1. Type about:config in the URL/Location/Address bar and press the Enter key
  2. Accept the warning message (promise to be careful)
  3. The preferences page/list will open
  4. Filter = browser.tabs.warnOnClose
  5. If its value is set to false, double-click on it (in the lower panel) to toggle its value to true
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for these following 3 preferences also:
    • browser.warnOnQuit
    • browser.warnOnRestart
    • browser.showQuitWarning
  7. See: