How to Reload Tabs When Your Browser Closes Unexpectedly
Tabs are not meant to be read. Tabs are meant to be opened and left open while you spend your precious time opening other tabs. At any given moment, you may have dozens of tabs running in the background, waiting for you to return. But when disaster strikes and you accidentally close your browser—or it closes you—there is no hope of visiting those tabs again. Or that?
The main problem, at least on a Mac, is how easy it is to accidentally close the browser while using it. Command + Q is meant to instantly close an active app, perfect for when you’re actually done with it, but otherwise downright dangerous. For example, Command + Tab quickly changes the application, and in the browser , Command + W closes the current window or tab. Both Tab and W are right next to Q , meaning that a simple swipe of your finger allows you to close the active window and disable Chrome entirely.
On the other hand, browsers sometimes close without human error. After all, they are programs, and programs sometimes crash, especially when you have an ungodly number of tabs vying for your attention. Whichever way your browser closes, you have a problem: you want your tabs back, and they seem to be gone forever.
How to restore tabs after closing the browser
It appears that most major browsers have the same command to restore tabs after closing the browser, making life much easier for everyone. Whether you’re using Safari, Chrome, Edge, or another option, the next time your browser crashes, do the following:
- Mac: Command + Shift + T
- PC: Ctrl + Shift + T
When you do this, your previously closed tabs will come back to life as if they were never closed. Almost. They’ll still have to reload, so get ready to watch a lot of screens refresh as you click through your tabs. You could also lose some progress depending on what you were doing in the tab when the browser closed, so that’s a bummer. But at least your tabs are back.
Another option is to tell the browser to reopen the previous session every time you launch the browser. This will save all tabs and windows if you close the browser and reopen them on startup. Personally, I prefer to start a new browsing session with a clean slate, since I still exit the browser with a bunch of open tabs. But if you like peace of mind, dive into your browser settings:
- Chrome : Settings > On startup > Continue where you left off.
- Edge : Settings > Start, Home and New Tabs > Open tabs from previous session.
- Safari : Preferences > General > Safari opens with > All windows from last session.
Don’t let your browsers log you out from the start
It’s all too easy to accidentally exit the browser on Mac computers, but you can fight back. Some browsers, such as Chrome and Edge, have a feature that requires you to hold down Command + Q for a few seconds before the app closes. A quick key press will only bring up “Hold Q command to exit”, which will completely save you from the situation. You can find the “Warn Before Exit” feature by clicking the browser’s name in the menu bar.
Unfortunately, Safari doesn’t have this feature.