Pinned tabs are stored in your session history. As with all other session history, there are many ways to lose it... Sometimes an older file has what you need. Could you:

Check the History Menu

On the History menu, is Restore Previous Session available? If so, try that. If it's grayed out, does the menu list any closed windows you can re-open? Each window will have its own list of closed tabs you can re-open.

Back up Session History Files

Open your 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" / "Open Directory" / "Show in Finder" button (varies depending on your OS). That will pop open your system's file browser.

In your profile folder, scroll down and double-click into the sessionstore-backups folder. Save all files here to a safe location, for example, your Documents folder. If not too much time has passed, we may be able to use them to recover your lost tabs.

Check File Contents

The kinds of files you may find among your sessionstore files are:

• recovery.js: 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.bak: a backup copy of recovery.js
• previous.js: the windows and tabs in your last Firefox session
• upgrade.js-build_id: the windows and tabs in the Firefox session that was live at the time of your last update

You can view the contents of a file by dragging and dropping it onto the blank text area of my Scrounger tool: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/scrounger.html

Once you see the text in the box, click the Scrounge URLs button.

Can you find what you're looking for?

Unfortunately, even though the Restore Previous Session has worked in the past, this has also disappeared from the history which is why, this time I can't get them back. So I tried your solution and it worked, Thanks

Hmm, if the History menu is not its usual self, there might be some other problem with Firefox such as corrupted program files, but let us know if that problem persists.

Thanks I might be tempted to re-install if necessary

Hi,

FF says it can remember my Windows and Tabs. It's check-marked to do so. Problem is, it only remembered and opened 3 of my 5-to-7 windows I had opened when I tried this the other day.

I'm better off to use 'End Process Tree', which I have been using for years. This method always remembers all 5, 6, or 7 Windows and Tabs I had opened.

My FF had been crashing my computer lately (Blue-screen). Probably one of the Extensions/Add-Ons. So I 'Refreshed' it, and now it's better for over a week, so far. I only have the Extension 'Disconnect' at the moment.

Back to 'Tabs not Remembered'.

A while ago, I 'Bookmark All Tabs'. When I go check it, all but the Pinned Tabs had been saved! (Sigh) I Right-Click on a regular Tab, it gives me the option to 'Bookmark All Tabs'. It does not when Right-Click on a Pinned Tab.

Is this a bug or is there a Config option to have Pinned Tabs saved, also?

Is there also an option (Config?) to have, say, 7 Windows and their Tabs remembered when I close and reopen FF? As I mentioned above, it only remembered 3 of my Windows I had opened - not the others.

I'm almost done reconstructing my Pinned Tabs from History. The Pinned Tabs are taking up about half the row now. Is there an option to have Tabs on more than one row? Like, Pinned Tabs on one row and the other Tabs on another row?

Thanks.

- Pj

Pj said

FF says it can remember my Windows and Tabs. It's check-marked to do so. Problem is, it only remembered and opened 3 of my 5-to-7 windows I had opened when I tried this the other day.

By default, Firefox only remembers the last 3 closed windows. These are the ones you can re-open from the History menu (they are below the list of tabs you can restore) after you restore your previous session.

How do you close out of Firefox? If you use "Exit" from the menu, then those windows should all be considered "open" at the time you shut down (similar to when you intentionally crash it, but with less risk of file corruption). By Exit I mean either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
• (menu bar) File > Exit
  If you do not usually display the classic menu bar on Firefox for Windows, you can tap the Alt key or F10 key to activate it.

And as a failsafe, you can set Firefox to remember more closed Windows; I have mine set to 10! Here's how:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste sess and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo preference and enter the desired value.

(4) If you also want Firefox to remember more closed tabs per window, double-click the browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo preference and enter the desired value.

A while ago, I 'Bookmark All Tabs'. When I go check it, all but the Pinned Tabs had been saved! (Sigh) I Right-Click on a regular Tab, it gives me the option to 'Bookmark All Tabs'. It does not when Right-Click on a Pinned Tab.

Is this a bug or is there a Config option to have Pinned Tabs saved, also?

I don't know about this, sorry.

The Pinned Tabs are taking up about half the row now. Is there an option to have Tabs on more than one row? Like, Pinned Tabs on one row and the other Tabs on another row?

Many aspects of Firefox's interface can be modified with custom style rules. But I suggest starting a new thread for that, since this post is already marked solved and I suspect people won't be jumping in to help with a custom style rule or add-on with this subject line.

Here's a link to start a new question -- as you know, you need to scroll down past article suggestions to continue with the form:

https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/desktop/tips

You also could peruse the results of this search targeted at the Firefox subreddit where this seems to be coming up a lot recently:

site:reddit.com/r/firefox multi-row tab-bar "userchrome.css" - Google Search

jscher2000 said

By default, Firefox only remembers the last 3 closed windows. ... I have mine set to 10! Here's how... If you also want Firefox to remember more closed tabs per window, double-click the browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo preference and enter the desired value.

I think that 'Tabs Undo' thing is for manually undoing Tabs, so the default should be ok with me.

Ok, done. I set it to 12. The most I've had was 8, so 12 ought to do it.

A while ago, I 'Bookmark All Tabs'. When I go check it, all but the Pinned Tabs had been saved! ... Is this a bug or is there a Config option to have Pinned Tabs saved, also?

jscher2000 said

I don't know about this, sorry.

Is this a boo-boo I see in About:Confound?:

"browser.sessionstore.restore_hidden_tabs; false" or "browser.sessionstore.restore_pinned_tabs_on_demand;false"

Should one or both be True? Maybe that's why they're not being saved with "Bookmark All Tabs" and not be restored from the 'Exit' of FF?

And what's this mean?:

"browser.sessionstore.restore_tabs_lazily;true"

And this critter, too?:

"browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes;1"

What does that do, and do I want to bother adjusting that value?

Oh, and what do these do?:

"browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once;false"

"browser.newtabpage.rows;3"

Be it Pinned or Regular Tabs, what setting do I adjust to only load one Tab per Window? I don't want them all loading at once, especially if I got 100 Tabs on one Window and bunch of Tabs on other Windows.

This 55.0.3 version is loading it all when previously, I had it set to not do that. (Wiped-out by 'ReFresh'?)

Thanx-a-Bunch!

- Pj

Hi Pj:

You can read the comments on the preferences in the source code here:

https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#847

A couple of notes:

"browser.sessionstore.restore_pinned_tabs_on_demand;false" - false means that all tabs load on session restore instead of when you click them; changing to true should defer loading

"browser.sessionstore.restore_tabs_lazily;true" - gives the user control of the user interface faster after a session store

"browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes;1" - after a crash, try automatic system restore once, if it fails, then show the "this is embarrassing page" with the option to deselect windows and tabs to restore or skip restoration completely (setting to 0 always shows that screen during crash recovery)

"browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once;false" - this is set to true when you do an update in mid-session, but it should be false otherwise

"browser.newtabpage.rows;3" - the new tab page is what you see when you click the "+" button on the tab bar or press Ctrl+t (Mac: Command+t); I don't think this is relevant

Be it Pinned or Regular Tabs, what setting do I adjust to only load one Tab per Window? I don't want them all loading at once, especially if I got 100 Tabs on one Window and bunch of Tabs on other Windows.

Make sure the two "on_demand" preferences are set to true:

• browser.sessionstore.restore_on_demand => default true (for regular tabs)
• browser.sessionstore.restore_pinned_tabs_on_demand => default false (for pinned tabs)

jscher2000 said

Hi Pj: You can read the comments on the preferences in the source code here: https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/browser/app/profile/firefox.js#847

Thanks for the reply. I'll read your post in detail and see what I may or may not adjust. I just need to find why my Pinned Tabs are not being saved in the Bookmarks, thus not there upon restarting FF.

I like the new way after I do "End Process Tree" everything auto-loaded where I left off. I'm 'scared' to 'Exit FF' for fear of not having my Pinned Tabs show-up on the next start.

I have 19 pinned tabs, so I definitely have both (regular and pinned) restore on demand prefs set to true and you really wouldn't want to reload all tabs automatically after a crash.

Make sure to use one of these to close Firefox if you are currently doing that by clicking the close X on the Firefox title bar.

• "3-bar" menu button -> Exit (Power button)
• Windows: File -> Exit
• Mac: Firefox -> Quit Firefox
• Linux: File -> Quit

Note that you have to make sure not to clear the browsing history when you close Firefox.

• Options/Preferences -> Privacy -> Firefox will: "Use custom settings for history": [X] "Clear history when Firefox closes" -> Settings