Avatar for Username

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

Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

accidentally deleted history of opened tabs

  • 1 baphendule
  • 1 inale nkinga
  • 1 view
  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu cor-el

ed55
ed55
more options

I accidentally deleted my history of opened tabs in Firefox (on Windows 10) by opening a new tab before opening the old tabs from the restore previous session-option. Can I access the old tabs?

When I select “history” (in the menu) and then “manage history”, I can choose “import and backup” and then “restore”. Then I get a number of dates that I perceive as restore points for tabs that were open at that particular time. One of these dates is the date with the tabs I want. Do I understand this correctly and can I access my accidentally closed window in this way?

When I select the date of interest, I get the message “This will replace all of your current bookmarks with the backup. Are you sure?”. I then click “OK”, but nothing happens.

I accidentally deleted my history of opened tabs in Firefox (on Windows 10) by opening a new tab before opening the old tabs from the restore previous session-option. Can I access the old tabs? When I select “history” (in the menu) and then “manage history”, I can choose “import and backup” and then “restore”. Then I get a number of dates that I perceive as restore points for tabs that were open at that particular time. One of these dates is the date with the tabs I want. Do I understand this correctly and can I access my accidentally closed window in this way? When I select the date of interest, I get the message “This will replace all of your current bookmarks with the backup. Are you sure?”. I then click “OK”, but nothing happens.

All Replies (1)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

"Import and backup -> Restore" is about restoring an automatically created Bookmark backup. This has nothing to do with session data like open tabs. If you restore such a backup then you lose bookmarks newer than are in this restored backup like the message about replacing intends to say, so use with care.

You need a sessionstore file from the sessionstore-backups folder that has the lost tabs to be able to access those tabs.

You can look at this tool to inspect a compressed jsonlz4 sessionstore file. This tool works locally, no uploading done.

Backup the session files in the sessionstore-backups folder in the Firefox profile folder to make sure not to lose possible important session data. Do NOT close Firefox when Firefox is already running.

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).

You will normally find these files in the sessionstore-backups folder:

  • previous.jsonlz4 (cleanBackup: copy of sessionstore.jsonlz4 from previous session that was loaded successfully)
  • recovery.jsonlz4 (latest version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • recovery.baklz4 (previous version of sessionstore.jsonlz4 written during runtime)
  • upgrade.jsonlz4-<build_id> (backup created during an upgrade of Firefox)

You can copy a file from the sessionstore-backups folder to the main profile and rename the file to sessionstore.jsonlz4 to replace the current file with Firefox closed.

  • make sure to backup the current sessionstore.jsonlz4