Coding Friend LLC

← Never Lose Tabs · Guides

How to save all your open tabs in Chrome before you restart or update

Updated October 27, 2026

You're about to restart, update, reset Chrome, or close a pile of tabs, and you want to be sure you can get them back. Here are four ways to save them, fastest first, with the catch for each one.

1. Bookmark every tab in a window: Ctrl+Shift+D

Press Ctrl+Shift+D (Mac: ⌘+Shift+D). Chrome saves all open tabs in the current window as bookmarks in a new folder (Google's shortcut list). Name the folder something you'll recognize, like today's date.

To get them back, open the Bookmark Manager with Ctrl+Shift+O (Mac: ⌘+Option+B), right-click the folder and choose Open all.

The catch: it works one window at a time, so repeat it in every window. Tab groups and pinned tabs come back as plain tabs. And it's a snapshot: tabs you open afterward aren't in it.

2. Turn on "Continue where you left off"

Open the ⋮ menu, choose Settings, then On startup, and pick Continue where you left off. Chrome reopens "the same pages you were looking at when you quit" (Google's startup help).

The catch: it relies on Chrome's one record of your last session. A crash or a bad shutdown can leave you with nothing. It's a convenience, not a backup. Our guide Chrome deletes your tabs every time you close it? covers this setting in detail.

3. Keep your tab groups as saved groups

If you use tab groups, Chrome keeps closed groups for you: "A closed group isn't deleted and is saved in the bookmarks bar or in the menu. You can open a closed group again." (Google's tab help) Open the ⋮ menu and choose Tab groups to see them.

The catch: only tabs inside a group are kept this way, and deleting a group removes it on every device signed in to the same account (Google's tab help).

4. Use an extension that saves automatically

The first three depend on you remembering, or on Chrome's single session record. A session saver keeps its own copies without you doing anything. Check that it saves on its own, keeps a backup file outside Chrome, and lets you restore and export for free.

Before you reset Chrome's settings

A reset puts your startup pages and pinned tabs back to the defaults (Google's reset help). Bookmark every window first (method 1), and write down which tabs you had pinned.

The 1-minute routine before a big restart

  1. Press Ctrl+Shift+D in each window and name the folders.
  2. Check that Continue where you left off is on.
  3. If you use a session saver, check that its last backup is from today.
  4. Restart. If tabs are missing afterward, press Ctrl+Shift+T (Mac: ⌘+Shift+T) first. It reopens closed tabs in the order they were closed (Google's shortcut list).

Questions

How do I get a list of all my open tab links?

Save each window with method 1, then export your bookmarks from the Bookmark Manager's ⋮ menu with Export bookmarks. Chrome writes them to an HTML file (Google's import and export help). Never Lose Tabs can also export everything it has saved.

Do saved tabs slow Chrome down?

No. Bookmarks and saved lists aren't open pages. Only open tabs use memory.

So it never happens again

Every manual method depends on you remembering to do it. 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.
  • Save now. Press Alt+Shift+S any time to save every open tab on the spot.
  • 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: freeHow 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.