How to Recover Tabs After a Crash, a Close or an Update

How to Get Your Tabs Back Right Now, in Any Browser

Try these first. They are built into your browser and work whether or not BelayTab is installed.

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on Mac)

   This reopens the last closed tab, or the whole window if a window was the last thing you closed. Press it again to go further back.

2. Check History > Recently closed

   Open the History menu (Ctrl+H, or Cmd+Y in Chrome on Mac) and look for Recently closed. Closed windows are listed with their tab count, and one click reopens all of them.

3. Use the Restore prompt after a crash

   When Chrome, Edge or Brave closes unexpectedly, the next launch shows a “Restore” button. Click it before opening new tabs, because new activity can push the old session out.

4. Turn on “Continue where you left off”

   In Chrome’s Settings > On startup, this option reopens your last session every time the browser starts. Other browsers have the same setting under a similar name.

These tools only remember recent closures, and a browser update, profile reset or second crash can clear them. If they come up empty, the rest of this page is for you.

Built-in Restore Shortcuts by Browser

The Recovery Screen

BelayTab has a screen built for the moment you realise tabs are gone. It gathers every place your tabs might still be, so you can get something back within a minute without contacting anyone.

• Automatic snapshots of every window, browsable by date and time
• Sessions deleted in the last 30 days
• The browser’s own recently closed windows (not available on Safari, which doesn’t share this list with extensions)
• BelayTab export files it finds on your computer
• An import box for a OneTab or Session Buddy export, if that’s where your tabs were

Snapshots: Tabs You Never Saved Are Still Saved

BelayTab snapshots every open window every 5 minutes and again whenever a window closes. If the browser crashes with 60 tabs open, the latest snapshot has them. If you close the wrong window, the snapshot taken as it closed has it.

BelayTab also backs up its own database before every update, so an extension or browser update can’t wipe your sessions.

Version History and the 30-Day Trash

Each saved session keeps its last 20 versions. Restoring an older version creates a new version rather than overwriting, so if a restore or merge goes wrong, the version before it is still there.

Deleting a session shows an Undo link straight away. After that, the session sits in trash for 30 days and can be restored from the Recovery screen.

All of this lives in your browser on your computer. If the computer itself is lost, the rolling export file and, on the paid plan, Sync are the copies that survive.