Save Sessions in Firefox without an Extension
This may be a little elementary to some of the tech savvy readers that frequent stumble across zerosign, but this little tip definitely saved me a headache last night. On any normal web surfing session, my Firefox window is filled with literally dozens of tabs containing sites that, for some reason or another, I desperately need. In the example from last night, I was in the middle of coding a new template for one of my wordpress sites on my new laptop when I suddenly realised that I didn’t have the ColorZilla extension installed yet. After finding the extension and downloading it I then realised that I had to restart Firefox. Ouch…all those tabs, all those sites that I needed. To by bass the chore of bookmarking each site individually, here’s a quick cheat that I used:
In Firefox
- go to Tools–>Options and click on the General tab.
- in the Home Page area simply click “Use Current” then click “OK”
This will set all the current tabs as your home page. You can then close the browser and the next time you open Firefox all the tabs from the previous session will be there waiting.
Certainly not the most elegant trick, but anything to save me time and the annoyance of downloading more needless software is greatly appreciated.
I also use a similar technique to organize my daily reads. There are so many sites I have to visit each day that I classify them into three different tiers. The ‘must read as soon as I’m awake’ sites get set as the homepage using this method. The 2nd tier of ‘read at my earliest convenience’ then get put in my bookmarks toolbar folder for easy access when I have some time. The last tier of sites wind of getting thrown in my Bloglines account to get checked whenever I get around to it. This system works pretty well at keeping me informed of things that absolutely matter, and the things that can wait and hour or two.
hmm.. doesn’t firefox do this when crashed? couldn’t you just *accidentally* crash your browser and that would count as a restart as well? also.. this is featured in tabbrowser.. an essential extention. in which you can open “Recently Closed Tabs”
Comment by Jonny — August 24, 2006 @
to be honest, Firefox crashes so rarely for me, I don’t know if it saves your session or not. But I definitely wouldn’t recommend intentionaly crashing it just so you can have your tabs saved. Secondly, about tabbrowser extension, the purpose of this article is to explain how to do it without an extension. I’m sure that there are plenty of session saving extensions out there.
Comment by Brandon — August 24, 2006 @
One nice thing that I’ve found is to create a subfolder in the bookmarks toolbar. That way it stays visible on the toolbar (even drops down the list of pages when you click on it), reminding me it’s there and doesn’t mess with what I already have set for homepages. Once I’ve gone through the pages later, I can just shitcan the whole folder and not have to mess with anything else.
(Only using firefox grudgingly because I apparently bricked IE by messing around with v7 beta. Won’t let me run it properly or switch back and the Microsoft official workarounds for this known issue don’t seem to work for me.)
Good tip, though.
Comment by rndmsfree — August 29, 2006 @
Hey, both the “set current” and the “save all tabs” options are great. Both are, I think, simple, fast and quite elegant ways to save a session with the hassles of extensions, etc. Great tip!
Comment by cb — October 20, 2006 @
I don’t know what are you guys talking about? This facility of saving your previous session e.g. all your tabs and windows is build in the firefox 2.0 browser. The simple thing which you guys have to do is this.
Go to Tools + Options + Main + Startup and there is an other Combobox option which says “When Firefox starts” and you select simply “Show my Windows and Tabs from the Last time”
That’s it, no extensions no tricks simply firefox.
Comment by Hassan — November 3, 2006 @
Wow, comment #5 was a lifesaver! Thanks for the tip, Hassan!!
Comment by Dan — December 4, 2006 @
Hassan, That’s a great idea, and I certainly thought about it, but what if I only want to save the current session, and not have it happen everytime I start Firefox? I think there should be a “Save Session” option under the File menu or the History menu. Then for cases where you want to restart and install extensions, you can just have it restore the session for only the next time. All this opening preferences for a once-time deal doesn’t save me the split-seconds in life that I need to accumulate to really be productive, haha.
Comment by Rob — December 10, 2006 @
I really appreciated all these tips. I used to do that ‘accidentally’ crashing the browser instead of closing the browser and lost all those pages. In this way, when I start my firefox, i could just restore my last sessions. I also thought firefox has a feature on saving sessions but I guess, there wasn’t. If there is, maybe, I just couldn’t find it. Unfortunately, failed to find it that’s why I was brought to this page.
I wasn’t able to download some extension, I just did what #5 posts. Well, I should have read it in the first place. So there ain’t no necessary for the browser to have the “Save Session” option where in fact we could just have it in a very simple way — When Firefox starts “show my windows and tabs from last time” or could be Use Current Pages” as homepage. Just make sure you have already organized your tabs the way you want to see them everytime you start your firefox everyday.
Comment by Richard Badlisan — December 19, 2006 @
right click on a tab, select “bookmark all tabs’… was that hard? I don’t think so…
Comment by arleas — December 28, 2006 @
uh-oh, bookmark all tabs, wouldn’t be a simple save session (even better to some xml) command in file menu do the trick? this looks really annoying (also when closing windows… etc.)
Comment by telefonovani — January 4, 2007 @
Opera has the best implementation of web browser sessions inherently built in. Once you use that, you may not want to go back to these lesser implementations of session savers.
Comment by Ang — January 11, 2007 @
Good site I found…Plan on coming back later.
Comment by Accounting Master — February 20, 2007 @
just end the process firefox.exe and then on next startup click restore session. easy. works like a charm
Comment by dan — March 11, 2007 @
Thanks for that tip, I was in the same situation as you described and googled for some solution. This is what I needed. Thanks a lot!
Comment by filip — March 17, 2007 @
from my experience when you install an extension and you have a bunch of windows open when you hit restart Firefox, it automatically opens all your pages again…
is this not true for everyone? don’t think I have any special settings.
anywho its still a cool trick
Comment by cedar — March 18, 2007 @
Unfortunately, if you use Firefox Preloader, the built in session restore from Firefox 2.0 causes all sorts of hassles.
Not sure what the alternative way to do this is.
Comment by Brad — April 3, 2007 @
Just go to tools > options >general tab:
Select “Show my windows and tabs from last time” from the drop down list.
http://mrgierer.wordpress.com/2006/11/20/firefox2-save-session-state/
Comment by Chris — April 11, 2007 @
Just came across your tip today. Thanks! So simple, yet something which had not occurred to me!
Tom
Comment by Tom — April 14, 2007 @
bookmarks>bookmark all tabs>name it whatever you want… this way you can come back to it anytime by right clicking on the folder in your bookmarks and selecting Open all in Tabs…
Comment by Ravi — April 14, 2007 @
A lot of times I go into my processes and end firefox just so it saves my tabs. Then the next time it opens I just click restore session.
Comment by Mike — June 16, 2007 @
To just save the session once, you can do it the same way firefox does on an extension install.
Open about:config in a tab. Browse/filter for ‘browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once’ and change it to true.
Close firefox.
Open firefox.
Very clean, but not very quick. To improve the proccess it would be easy enough to add to a button/menu item from an extension to change the value. Might even be able to javascript it, but I’ve not tried that.
Comment by Nick — July 5, 2007 @
I came here from Google, looking for a way to save Firefox sessions. I think my favourite solution on this page is the “Bookmark All Tabs” -> “Open All in Tabs” option. It’s quick, simple AND you can save MULTIPLE sessions!
Thanks Ravi.
Comment by Gnack — July 18, 2007 @
(Yes, I have read all the posts, so don’t say that I am repeating something that has already been said.)
Many people are mentioning the “Bookmark all tabs” trick. This is what I do, except I make a folder named “Last Session.” I think many of you are doing this, but not many of the people who posted this trick mentioned making a folder. You could name it whatever you want or have different folders for different dates, times, etc. This is so effortless, you could do it with your eyes closed. I urge anyone who uses this trick to also make a folder to make everything more organized and away from every other bookmark you have.
(I already mentioned why I made this post. Not many people who mentioned this trick pointed out that folders can be an amazing time saver.)
Comment by John — August 29, 2007 @
I’ve tried your tip and it gives me an error message that’ weird. I’ll keep on trying to see what’s wrong and I’ll probably submit an email support ticket to them if I’m still stuck.
Will update here when I get the answers.
Anyway thanks for sharing.
~Jason
Comment by jason — September 1, 2007 @
@21
Thanks m8. I’m using mac so your tips did the trick just fine.
Comment by reza — November 22, 2007 @
I have often power cuts so firefox restore session is very handy feature. But be aware before rely to it: it doesn’t always remember the latest tabs, sometimes it restores somthing I had viewed a long time ago. This is definitely a bug.
Comment by Max — November 27, 2007 @
You can just control alt delete and end firefox’s task. that does the trick just as if you were restarting, or if it crashed.
Comment by david — December 14, 2007 @
I’ll summarize the options:
1. Regardless of the “home page” option, Firefox will restore the session after a crash or when restarting after installing extensions. That should solve your main problem of installing colorful tabs and restarting.
2. bookmark all tabs. The most consistent method, useful when you have a bunch of tabs open related to a specific context and you feel you’ll want to return to that group later.
3. set home page to “windows and tabs from last time”. Useful if you tend to close the browser regularly and need the tabs again.
4. about: config browser.sessionstore.resume_session_once or use an extension called “save session” that does exactly that: allows 2 toolbar buttons: one that toggles this exact setting and one that does the same and then exits immediately.
My recommendation though is to either use the fully automated method (3) or use the bookmark feature. The other options will cause one to feel less secure about his sessions being properly restored.
Comment by avih — December 18, 2007 @
Looks like none of you’ve heard about “Add-ons”
“Session Manager” lets you do anything you want with your pages, I use it on the situation you mention. Name the session and reopen it at your convenience - way easier to keep organized than using bookmarks, they are dated too.
“Session Fix” just adds a button “Save session” to the dialog when you close Firefox.
A quick look at mozilla’s extension page will make you happier!
Comment by Ricardo — December 28, 2007 @
thanks man you just saved my life
Comment by luke — February 8, 2008 @
comment #29 - this thread refers to methods available WITHOUT using add-ons. the idea is to avoid adding unnecessary extensions to the application which can make it unstable and run slowly.
Comment by cam — February 28, 2008 @
If you just close windows, without closing firefox, the session will be saved.
Comment by asasdf — March 6, 2008 @
Brandon I can’t see any harm in *crashing* Firefox; That is, ending the firefox.exe task from the Windows Task Manager:
ps. You might want to update the post to reflect the changes from Firefox version 1, to the current version two?..:)
Comment by nimd4 — March 22, 2008 @
Why don’t you just start at the TOP!!!! this issue was solved in NOVEMBER 2006!!! see number 5.
Comment by miked — May 13, 2008 @
We need also the history of (backward and forward page has been visited) at each tab.
So, I think bookmarking all tabs can not solve.
Add-on still the best answer, but the problem is how use add-on after install it, but before restart firefox?
As known, add-on only function after restarting firefox.
Like what happen to me now:
I just get idea to manage my sessions, and just install the add-on;
but I can not use the add-on before restarting firefox.
Now I will ask google about: “how to use firefox add-on without restarting”. =))
Comment by AbuNAwaS — May 14, 2008 @
No one has mentioned this though… What if you hit the close (x) and you didn’t see a pop under or up that opened another window. You do not get the save session option and I have been unable to find a way to recover all my previous tabs. Being partially blind I sometimes miss that pop up/under.
Comment by bob — August 14, 2008 @
No cludge needed. No add-ons needed.
In firefox 3, under Preferences, above the Home Page setting, there’s a drop-down box titled “When firefox starts”; and you can select “show my windows and tabs from last time”.
Comment by hup — September 15, 2008 @