LOST ALL TABS IN MICROSOFT EDGE EVEN THOUGH I DID WHAT I WAS SUPPOSE TO

Question

LOST ALL TABS IN MICROSOFT EDGE EVEN THOUGH I DID WHAT I WAS SUPPOSE TO

Linda Bui 0

I know this gets said a lot but I saw all of my tabs on Microsoft Edge was frozen. So I clicked one window thinking it would make all of the tabs work normally. Then all of my tabs disappeared. Went to click on Edge and all of my tabs are gone. I did have open tabs from previous session highlighted. Usually, edge always opens my tabs for me.

I even tried the complicated steps of running a command thing to open my old tabs on Edge back. Now that didn't work. What should I do get those old tabs back? I even clicked on recently closed which was blank which doesn't make sense because I had a lot of tabs open.

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Answer 1

Lychee-Ng 25,605 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Linda Bui,

I can understand how frustrating it is when your tabs disappeared after a freeze, especially when Edge used to reopen the tabs for you. Based on your description, it sounds like the browser may not have properly saved the session before the window restarted. Unfortunately, if Recently closed is completely blank, that usually means Edge no longer has the information available to restore. That said, there are still a few things worth trying before giving up completely:

1 - Reopen closed tabs with shortcuts

Whenever your tabs are closed without saving, you should do this right away
Press Ctrl + Shift + T multiple times to attempt reopen Edge's latest Closed tabs
However, since you've tried other restore methods, the data might've been overwritten.

2 - Check the full Edge History

Open Edge > press Ctrl + H > click three-dot > Open history page
Look for a group of pages from the time before tabs disappeared.
If found, you can open multiple entries by Ctrl-clicking them or restore manually.

3 - Look into Tab groups (if you previously used it)

Open Edge > click the three-dot next to your profile > Tab groups
Check the list and the tabs to see if there's any includes your old tabs.
If available, select (a) tab group to restore the last browser window session.

4 - Check if the tabs were synced to another device

If you're signed into Edge on another device with a Microsoft account and Sync is enabled
Open Edge on that device > press Ctrl + H > check Tabs from other devices
You may be able to recover some of the lost tabs from there.

Unfortunately, if none of the above could help you restore the tabs, the session data may already be lost and there's no supported method to recover the exact tab set.

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Linda Bui 0 Reputation points

2026-07-27T13:18:47.2933333+00:00

Isn't there another way to restore the previous sessions? I had that highlighted and also, my Sync is enabled.
Lychee-Ng 25,605 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-27T13:35:48.83+00:00

Were you offered to restore the session when it wasn't closed correctly before, and did you choose it? It's one time thing so you cannot manually initiate it.

Sync is mainly for streamlining your experience between different devices, it's not really related to history or closed tabs on one device. Like if you have Edge on another PC/phone, you can check the closed tabs/history there.

Also, it can't be ruled out that previous tries to get back your tabs might have overwritten your tabs data, closing the opportunity to recover.
Linda Bui 0 Reputation points

2026-07-27T15:20:47.03+00:00

No, I wasn't offered to restore the session when it wasn't closed because I had all the tabs. So I didn't need to restore the session before.
Lychee-Ng 25,605 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-28T06:36:18.68+00:00

Hi, based on my previous similar experience, I think I can guess what happened. The Open previous session only works if the browser was closed normally (with tabs still opening), if it crashes/freezes, the latest session is often not recorded or recorded as blank.

In your case, the tabs froze and closed before the browser did, so the latest recorded session is a blank Edge with no tabs. When you reopen Edge, it opens that session instead. Then after you tried other things to get it back, the old data and session are overwritten.

My personal suggestion is that, next time running into crashes or freezes, when you reopen Edge and the tabs are gone, you should immediately press Ctrl + Shift + T (maybe a few times) to reopen the latest session.
Linda Bui 0 Reputation points

2026-07-28T13:54:34.8533333+00:00

I did Ctrl + Shift + T but it still didn't open all the old tabs.
Lychee-Ng 25,605 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-29T06:50:53.16+00:00

You meant right away after the freeze? Or it was after reopening Edge? Either way, if the tabs couldn't be found in the full History, unfortunately they might have been lost.