How to save tabs in Chrome — and keep them when you close it

Updated 8 October 2026 · by Roman Denisov, maker of Tabfort

There are four ways to save your open tabs in Chrome. They differ in one important thing: what happens if Chrome closes unexpectedly or you forget to save.

1. Make Chrome reopen your tabs on start

Open Settings → On startup and choose Continue where you left off. Chrome will reopen the tabs that were open when you closed it.

Good for: everyday restarts. Limits: it keeps only the last session. If you close windows one by one, only the last window comes back. If the session is lost in a crash or a bad update, there is no earlier copy to return to.

2. Bookmark all open tabs

Press Ctrl+Shift+D (Mac: ⌘+Shift+D) or right-click a tab → Bookmark all tabs. Chrome puts all tabs of the window into a new bookmarks folder. To reopen them, right-click the folder → Open all.

Good for: putting a project away for later. Limits: manual, one window at a time, tab groups and pinned tabs are not kept, and your bookmarks fill up with dated folders.

3. Save tabs as a tab group

Select tabs (hold Ctrl and click), right-click → Add tabs to new group, give the group a name. In recent Chrome versions groups are saved: you can close a group (right-click the group name → Hide group) and reopen it later from the tab groups list.

Good for: a few topics you switch between. Limits: you still organise by hand, and Delete group removes it for good.

4. Save tabs automatically with an extension

A tab or session manager extension can save all windows for you. There are two kinds:

• Manual savers — you click a button to save the current tabs into a list (OneTab works this way). Nothing is saved if you forget to click.
• Automatic session managers — they keep saving while you browse, so a crash or an update can't take your tabs.

Which method should you use?

• You just want your tabs back after a normal restart → method 1.
• You want to park a project for weeks → method 2 or 3.
• You keep dozens of tabs open for work and can't afford to lose them → method 1 plus an automatic extension.

Tabfort: tabs saved without thinking about it

• Saves every window, tab and tab group within seconds of a change, plus a snapshot every 5 minutes.
• Save a set of tabs as a named session when you want to — and edit it later.
• Restores tab groups exactly: names, colours, collapsed state, pinned tabs.
• Restores hundreds of tabs without freezing your computer: each tab loads only when you open it.
• Export everything to a file at any time. No account, your tabs stay on your computer.

Questions

More guides

• Chrome lost all your tabs? Here is how to get them back
• Chrome lost your tab groups? How to restore and save them
• A OneTab alternative that saves your tabs automatically