How to reopen closed tabs in Firefox and get your last session back

Updated 18 October 2026

Press Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on a Mac) and Firefox reopens the last tab or window you closed; press it again to keep going back. Right after Firefox starts, before you close anything, the same keys bring back your whole previous session.

Reopen a closed tab

Firefox reopens tabs in the order you closed them, newest first. If you closed several at once, with Close Tabs to Right, Close Other Tabs or a selection, one press brings the whole batch back. With the mouse, right-click an empty part of the tab bar and choose Reopen Closed Tab.

To pick one tab from a list:

1. Click the menu button and choose History > Recently closed tabs. On a Mac, the menu bar has the same list under History > Recently Closed Tabs.
2. Click the tab you want, or Reopen all tabs at the bottom.

The list covers every window and is still there after a restart. Firefox’s defaults keep 25 closed tabs per window and forget closed tabs and windows after two weeks. For anything older, use History > Search history, or the History sidebar (Ctrl+H, Cmd+Shift+H on a Mac).

Reopen a closed window

Press Ctrl+Shift+N (Cmd+Shift+N on a Mac), or open History > Recently closed windows. It lists your last five windows by title, each with its number of tabs and the time you closed it, and ends with Reopen all windows.

Restore your previous session

If Firefox opened on the home page without your tabs, they’re still recoverable:

1. Before you close any tab, press Ctrl+Shift+T, or click the menu button and choose History > Restore previous session. Every window from last time comes back.
2. To have this happen at every start, open Settings > Home and startup and tick Open previous windows and tabs under Startup.

With that setting off, Firefox still reopens pinned tabs, keeps your tab groups in the List all tabs menu and lists your other tabs under Recently closed tabs.

After a crash

Firefox brings your tabs back by itself the next time it starts, even with the startup setting off. It shows the Restore Session page instead after two crashes in a row, or when you start it six hours or more after the crash. On that page, View Previous Tabs lets you untick a tab you suspect before you click Restore Session. If Firefox crashes again, Mozilla suggests Start New Session, then picking windows from History > Recently closed windows. Closed the page by mistake? Type about:sessionrestore in the address bar.

After an update

When Firefox restarts to finish an update, your windows and tabs should come back on their own. If they don’t, Mozilla points to Recently closed windows and Recently closed tabs in the History menu, then to the startup setting. On a Mac, Firefox 132 and later reopens by itself, tabs included, when macOS restarts after a system update or a shutdown, as long as Firefox was running at the time.

Restore tabs from a backup file

When about:sessionrestore is empty, Mozilla’s fix is to put an older copy of the session in place:

1. Type about:support in the address bar and click Open Folder next to Profile Folder (Show in Finder on a Mac, Open Directory on Linux).
2. Copy the sessionstore-backups folder to your desktop, then quit Firefox.
3. Move sessionstore.jsonlz4 out of the profile folder, to the desktop as well.
4. Copy a file from your copy of sessionstore-backups into the profile folder and rename it sessionstore.jsonlz4. Mozilla says any of them should work; skip one that’s much smaller than the rest. Show file extensions in your file manager first, or the rename won’t take.
5. Start Firefox. If the tabs don’t open, use History > Restore previous session.

The folder holds recovery.jsonlz4, written while Firefox runs, plus older copies: recovery.baklz4, previous.jsonlz4 and up to three upgrade.jsonlz4- files from recent updates. The Microsoft Store version keeps its profile elsewhere (where Firefox bookmarks are stored has the path). For a longer record of sessions, Mozilla’s article recommends the Tab Session Manager add-on; our free session converter turns its exports into bookmarks.

Why Firefox didn’t restore your tabs

• Private windows are never restored, by design.
• Windows closed one by one. Only the last window you closed is restored. The others wait in Recently closed windows.
• History settings. In Settings > Privacy and security, under History, choose Remember history. With Customize history, make sure Always use private browsing mode is off and that Clear history when Firefox closes doesn’t include Browsing & download history.
• Tabs open blank or on the home page. Mozilla lists an extension, a change during an update or damaged session data as causes, and suggests Troubleshoot Mode, then resetting Firefox’s settings.

On Android and iPhone

In Firefox for Android, closing a tab shows a Tab closed message with UNDO. Later on, open the tab tray, tap the three-dot menu and choose Recently closed tabs. Private tabs can’t be reopened. Mozilla’s help for iPhone and iPad has no closed-tabs list; to find a page again, open the menu, choose History and search.