Chrome deletes your tabs every time you close it? Change this setting

Updated October 27, 2026

You close Chrome, open it again, and get a blank New Tab page. Usually Chrome isn't deleting them. It just isn't set to bring them back. As one person put it on Chrome's help forum: "there was a … feature that would reopen the tabs that were open when I shut down. But that's gone." (thread) Here's the fix.

1. Turn on "Continue where you left off"

Open the ⋮ menu at the top right and choose Settings.
On the left, choose On startup.
Select Continue where you left off.

Google says this tells Chrome to "re-open the same pages you were looking at when you quit" (Google's startup help). If you also want certain pages every time, pick Continue where you left off and open a specific set of pages.

2. Get today's tabs back

Press Ctrl+Shift+T (Mac: ⌘+Shift+T). Keep pressing it. Each press reopens the next tab or window you closed, in the order you closed them, so a whole window can come back at once. That's in Google's shortcut list and Google's tab help.

Open the ⋮ menu at the top right and point to History. Under it, Chrome lists what you closed recently. A closed window shows as one line like 12 tabs, and a closed tab group shows as its name and a count, like Thesis - 9 tabs. Click one to bring the whole thing back. On a Mac you can also use the History menu at the top of the screen, which has a Recently Closed section.

3. If the setting keeps switching back

Every time Chrome starts, it checks whether a program has changed your settings. If something looks wrong, it puts some back to the defaults, including startup pages and pinned tabs (Google's reset help).
Google says a startup page you didn't set yourself can be a sign of unwanted software (Google's startup help).
On a work or school Chromebook, your administrator controls the startup page and you can't change it (Google's startup help).

Other reasons tabs don't come back

They were Incognito windows. Your Incognito session ends when you close all Incognito windows (Google's Incognito help), and History doesn't store those pages (Google's History help).
Chrome opened a different profile. Each profile keeps its own history, bookmarks and settings. Click your profile picture at the top right to switch. To choose one each time, go to Manage Chrome profiles and check Show on startup.
Chrome crashed instead of closing. See our guide to recovering tabs after a crash.

Questions

Will "Continue where you left off" keep me signed in to websites?

Yes. Google notes that your cookies and data are saved, so sites you were signed in to open signed in again. If you don't want that, the same page shows how to turn on Delete data sites have saved on your device when you close all windows (Google's startup help).

Is this setting enough on its own?

It covers a normal close and reopen. It doesn't cover a crash that breaks Chrome's session record, a reinstall, or a new computer.

So it never happens again

The startup setting only works when Chrome's one record of your last session survives. That's why we made Never Lose Tabs, a Chrome extension that keeps its own copies of your tabs:

Restore points, automatically. As you browse, it saves every window, tab, tab group and pinned tab. There's nothing to click and nothing to remember.
An hourly backup file you hold. Every hour you browse, it writes a backup file to Downloads/NeverLoseTabs. It's outside Chrome, so it survives a reinstall of Chrome or of the extension, and you can copy it to a new computer.
A Restore button after a crash. If Chrome comes back with a big part of your tabs missing, the icon shows a red !. Click it, then Restore, and every window comes back, with your tab groups' names and colors.
Free protection, forever. Everything is unlocked for 14 days. After that, auto-save, crash recovery, backup files and restore stay free. Pro (folders, tags, notes and more) is a one-time $5, not a subscription.

It can't bring back tabs lost before you install it. It protects you from today on. It runs on Chrome on your computer, not on phones.

Add to Chrome: free How it works

We make Never Lose Tabs. Chrome is a trademark of Google LLC. Never Lose Tabs is made by Coding Friend LLC and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.