Imagine a situation where are you have a dozen different websites open inside Firefox and suddenly your wife walks in saying – "Let’s go out for dinner and then see a movie."
That’s an offer you can’t refuse but before shutting down the computer, you would like to save a list of all websites that are currently open in Firefox. Here are some suggestion on how to achieve this?
Option 1. Press Ctrl+Shift+D or go to Bookmarks and select "Bookmark all Tabs". This will save all the open tabs into one folder and you can resume surfing the next day by select "Open All in Tabs" from the bookmark folder.
Bonus Tip: Name this folder something like "Feb25" or "022508" so it becomes easy for you to guess the date from the folder name itself.
Option 2. Send Tab URLs – This extension helps you send URLs of all open tabs to any other email address tabs using your default email program – it could be Gmail, Microsoft Outlook or anything else. Very handy if you are working from home and need to access the same websites from office the next day.
If you don’t want email, use Tab URL Copier to copy URLs of all open tabs to the clipboard and paste them inside any note taking software like Google Notebook.
Related: Don’t Lose Work If IE 7 Browser Crashes
Option 3. Google Browser Sync – If you have a Google Account and work across computers, this Firefox add-in from Google is a perfect way to save your Firefox tabs and open windows. Unfortunately, Google Browser Sync is not supported on Firefox 3.
Option 4. Session Manager – This is probably the most popular solution for save your browser session in Firefox. It will even restore your windows and tabs incase your browser crashes.
Firefox, even without any extensions, will prompt your save the tabs if you decide to quit the browser when multiple tabs are open. This sounds like a good idea but if you are sharing the computer with other family members, you run the risk of losing work if someone else logs in the next day before you do.
Learn about some more useful Firefox Extensions.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/software/browsers/save-all-open-websites-firefox-tabs-sessions-quit/2382/
Tags: feature, firefox, firefox extensions, Software, Web Browsers
Reader Comments
The best thing is, firefox itself stores the urls when you want to quit today.
When I open lots of tabs and want to quit the browser without loosing all that urls.
I just end the process of firefox and start it again whenever I want.It loads all the website I left last time.
Written by Shailendra on 02.25.08
There is one more trick to do it. Kill firefox.exe from task manager in a ungraceful manner and by default, firefox will save the session. Next time you launch the firefox, it will prompt you to “Restore previous session” or “start new session” . Choose to restore previous session. And you are done !!!!
Thats it. It saves even the cokkies, so you will remain logined into google accounts etc.
Written by Rohit Khurana on 02.25.08
very handy tips thanks amit
Written by techie on 02.25.08
Or smply use Opera Or IE which give you a option to open the same pages the next time you open the browser.
I belive this is much simple.
Written by Rahul on 02.25.08
i knew the option 1, but the rest of them are new to me.
Written by planktons on 02.26.08
The approach i use is to end the firefox process, so whenever you restart the forefox, it will prompt a message whether you want to restart a previous session or want to start a new session.
People who are working on desktop without UPS may know this as whenever there is a power outage, forefox asks for the session prompt when you restart firefox next time. It seems that forefix saves the current open window information periodically.
Written by Kevin on 02.26.08
Nice post Amit. I thought i will let you know what i do in such a situation. I do an abrupt quit using task manager and the next time i open firefox it prompts for an session restore. Thats how i survive. :)
Written by Venkatesh Varalu on 02.26.08
ooops… just now rad others comments. looks like i am not the Columbus who is doing that… Lots of people are dependent on the sessions restore.
I wish i can contribute some code and add a feature to save the current session and quit Firefox. Rather an addon will do…
Written by Venkatesh Varalu on 02.26.08
Lol, you guys use system restore whereas there is an
inbuilt feature in firefox which allows us to do this. simply go to tools > options > main and in the startup area in ‘when firefox starts’ select ’show my windows and tabs from the last time’ and its done!
Written by Keshav Khera on 02.27.08
May i make just one simple solution… something i find invaluable at times, but also very simple… its called ‘Hibernation’ ;-) … the reason i like it is because when you hibernate your pc/laptop, it actually saves the current state of operations so that when you turn the pc/laptop on again, all the pages/tabs are still there in their full state… which comes in very handy for when you are online, have multiple tabs open, and need to read those pages (possibly the next time you wont have internet access, which can happen when using a laptop ;) )
Learn from nature… Hibernation!
Written by Shéa M. on 08.22.08
Is there any way to save multiple instances of the browsing sessions? sort of like saving different sets of tabs to launch everytime, like multiple restoring sessions
Written by Me on 08.31.08
I believe the best way is to kill firefox.exe from task manager in a ungraceful manner and by default, firefox will save the session of all windows.
The inbuilt feature in firefox: tools > options > main ‘when firefox starts’ select ’show my windows and tabs from the last time’ will only work on the last window you closed and not work if you have muliple windows. I have to open 500 histories and search through all to get back my tabs in multiple windows.
The unelegant method is crude but best!
Written by Priscilla on 03.31.09