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I've closed a Microsoft Edge (25.10586.0.0) window that had multiple old tabs on it restored over multiple starts, while unawares that I'd minimized a single window with nothing important on it. Now if I quit edge, when I next start it with "reopen last session" it will only open the unimportant window and not the important (recently closed one).

I can try control-shift-T but it reopens only tabs specific to the remaining window's history. If I look in the history, which I cannot search, I am amazed to not see very many of the tabs I just closed. EG a Docker image for Apache Drill, some Github pages etc.

Is reopening the last closed window with all it's tabs a missing feature? This is infuriating. Is there a work around?

dlamblin
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3 Answers3

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The same thing just happened to me (I had multiple windows open and accidentally closed one that had several important tabs). In a panic I searched for a way to restore the closed window, and came across this very question. From the other answer and the comments, my heart began to sink. But then I realized that they are outdated!

This is how it works in recent versions of Edge (which are based on Chromium). If you close a window containing more than 1 tab, and if you have yet to open any new tab in any other window, then you can reopen the closed window either by right-clicking on the tab area in any of the remaining open windows, or by using the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + T as indicated in the picture below.

Reopen closed window

pre-kidney
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  • This should be the accepted answer now. This just helped me out tremendously. Thanks! – Speedbird186 Apr 09 '21 at 13:10
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    What if you closed a window unknowingly, and you've opened and closed a bunch of tabs in the meantime? Are you just hosed? – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 29 '23 at 21:07
  • Clarification: just keep on pressing Ctrl+Shift+T and it will keep on opening closed tabs and windows. This works like Ctrl+Z that usually has a history of undos that you can keep on recovering. So, it does not matter if you have opened other tabs since the accidental closure of the important window. – Tripartio Jul 16 '23 at 15:38
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You can now do this using the new Microsoft Edge feature that ships with the Creators Update in Windows 10, it's called "Set these tabs aside".

While it's not as easy as simply clicking Exit on Chrome or Firefox you can indeed have many New Browser instances open, reboot and click Tabs You've Set Aside and successfully restore your previous browser state.

Edit:

Now with the Chromium version of Edge out, this issue is now fixed.

Virgil Shelton
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    This still doesn't answer when you accidentally close a window (eg press alt+f4 when closing the wrong window) – neversleepz Aug 05 '17 at 12:28
  • If you accidentally close Edge you should enabled Settings > Open Microsoft Edge with "Previous Pages" and you'll be protected. – Virgil Shelton Oct 14 '17 at 04:46
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    The problem being that if you've got multiple windows open as well as tabs and you accidentally close your main window then its lost for good. You have to recreate it by painstakingly scrolling through your history to look at the various dates they were all visited. – neversleepz Oct 15 '17 at 07:52
  • ... Even if you generally stick to one window browsing, other sites can sometimes open windows in the background (status windows, pop out chat dialog) and so closing your main window, leaves you with Edge still running, but unable to go back to that window. – neversleepz Oct 15 '17 at 07:59
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    This doesn't answer the question. – Nolonar Jun 03 '19 at 17:38
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    Ignores the main problem. – user12824 Feb 07 '22 at 18:56
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This is now possible to do which is fantastic!

  1. Right-click at the top of your window and from the context menu select reopen Closed Window

enter image description here

  1. When the window appears right click and select restore window
  2. Hey presto you have recovered from the so easy-to-do accidental window closing when you have other windows open too - and who doesn't these days!!
boardtc
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    This doesn't work if you've opened any tabs after closing the window. I had a named window with multiple named groups in it that vanished some time this morning, and I cannot find any trace of it in History. :( – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 29 '23 at 21:35