Lost all tabs in Microsoft Edge!!!

Question

Over many months, I built a very organized collection of many tabs in several groups in Edge only to see it all vanish this week. I thought that being logged into my Outlook account within Edge was protection against losing tabs, but apparently not.

The loss of the tabs was noticed when I was logging into my new employer's single sign-on system which it does through Microsoft. That is, I went to portal.office.com, logged in using the non-Microsoft email address assigned by the employer, and minutes later, when I was logged back into my Outlook account, I saw that the tabs that were in Edge in that Outlook account were all gone.

I am using Windows 10 Home Edition.

How can I recover those 100+ tabs and the groups they were organized into within Edge? Thanks.

Answer 1

It could be because since you signed in to your work email address, your personal Microsoft account browsing data stopped syncing to Microsoft Edge. I'm glad that you were able to recover your tabs. In case you want to sign in your work email in Microsoft Edge, you can add it instead as a new profile so when you need to switch, it opens a new window for that profile instead.

Have a great week!

Answer 2

JC03,

When I opened History in Edge minutes ago, there were many lines naming tabs representing websites that I had gone to in the last few days while trying to resolve this problem and I saw a few lines that said "Privacy error and 106 tabs". On each line in the history that said that, the line started with a nondescript hallow rectangle for an icon. That meaningless icon and "Privacy error" as the name of a tab I had no recollection of visiting did not make those lines stand out, but apparently that was my lost tabs. Right-clicking to open that line in a new window resulted in my lost tabs in groups being restored. Thanks!

A couple of days ago, another person ("Jen") here recommended checking the history, which I did. I don't know whether those "Prvacy error and 106 tabs" lines were not there or they did not catch my attention for the reasons explained above, but it looks like you both were right.

By the way, I always have the setting for "When Edge starts" to "Open tabs from the previous session" turned on wherever I use Edge, and normally it works fine on a daily basis.

Do you (or anyone else reading this) know why Edge would have cleared my tabs with grouops in the first place?

Jay

Answer 3

You can try restoring the closed tabs and also the tab groups manually by pressing Ctrl + H or clicking on the 3 dots and then selecting History. I shared a link to a video below with steps and also how to enable the "Open tabs from the previous session" option to prevent this from happening again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg9r9TLKZlM

Let me know how it goes.

*****Note: This is a non-Microsoft website that would provide accurate and safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that are frequently classified as PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). There is no need to buy paid products to fix your computers as they do more harm than good sometimes.*****

Answer 4

Jen,

Thank you for responding and your suggestion.

The page that you linked to in your message did not help. What is described there (using CTRL-SHFT-T) is workable if a single tab or two or three... were closed and you want to recover them. I have used CTRL-SHFT-T many times to accomplish that.

My current situation is different. It's not that a few tabs vanished, but rather every one of the 100+ tabs in the 15+ groups that I had organized in Edge were all gone. It was as if I had just started using Edge for the first time.

If logging into Edge with a Microsoft account provides no protection against losing all your tabs, and if you cannot log into Edge on another computer and have all your tabs from your last session appear on that computer, then I cannot see the value in logging into Edge with a Microsoft account.

Do you have another idea on how I can recover my lost tabs and groups in Edge? Thanks.

Answer 5

Hi, Jay.

I'm Jen. I'm an independent advisor and would happily help you figure this out.

You can try restoring them from your browser history. I suggest following the steps in the link below and see if it helps.

https://browserhow.com/how-to-reopen-recently-c...

Feel free to share how it went.

Kind regards.

*****Note: This is a non-Microsoft website that would provide accurate and safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that are frequently classified as PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). There is no need to buy paid products to fix your computers as they do more harm than good sometimes.*****