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How do I restore previous session from yestrd when I accidentally loggd out of Firefox this AM before selecting 'RestPrevSess' & aftr I opend & closd 2new tabs?

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I signed into Firefox, opened and closed a couple tabs before selecting 'Restore Previous Session' which resulted in me accidentally signing out of Firefox before I restored my previous session. I really need to restore all the tabs from my previous prior session. Please advise.

I signed into Firefox, opened and closed a couple tabs before selecting 'Restore Previous Session' which resulted in me accidentally signing out of Firefox before I restored my previous session. I really need to restore all the tabs from my previous prior session. Please advise.

All Replies (3)

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If neither of these are available (for example, grayed out):

  • "3-bar" menu button > Restore Previous Session
  • (menu bar) History > Restore Previous Session

Please check either:

  • "Library" toolbar button > History > Recently Closed Windows (and within each restored window, Recently Closed Tabs)
  • (menu bar) History > Recently Closed Windows (and within each restored window, Recently Closed Tabs)

If that doesn't help...

Firefox creates numerous session history files, but because session history is only for the immediately previous session, it is unfortunately too easy to lose it. Could you start by making 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 > "?" button > 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/res/scrounger.html

That tool is on my site, so please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

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Thank you for responding. It seems that that solution does not offer an option to restore the session prior to the last one. It appears I cannot recover the closed tabs.

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If the missing tabs are not in any of the files you found in the sessionstore-backups folder, then you won't be able to restore them.

To avoid this issue, I set Firefox to always restore my previous session at startup. It definitely slows things down, but I think it's worth it for me. If you want to try that, it's on the Options page, right near the beginning:

  • Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
  • Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
  • Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
  • Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it

"When Firefox starts:"

  • Show your windows and tabs from last time