Google-chrome – Save list of open tabs in Google Chrome when not responding

crashgoogle-chrome

I left Google Chrome open on my XP host last night with a bunch of open tabs, and this morning, the applications stops responding.

I'm afraid killing and restarting Chrome won't recover the open tabs.

I tried making a copy of "C:\Documents and Settings(me)\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Current Tabs", but even though I'm logged in with Admin rights, I get "Access denied on file Current Tabs".

Is there a way to get the list of tabs currently open in the browser?

Thank you.

Edit: I went ahead, killed Chrome… and as I feared, it didn't recover the open tabs. By default, Google doesn't seem to handle this, so we have to change its configuration: Basics > On Start Up: "Reopen the pages that were open last".

If the above doesn't work, maybe there's an extension that keeps tracks of open URL's and will positively recover them after a crash?

A more rudimentary solution is to 1) kill Chrome, and 2) grep for "http" the following file: "C:\Documents and Settings(me)\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Current Session".

Best Answer

Open Settings and there "On startup", "open the tabs that were open last time".

Works for me, ie. recovers the tabs also in case of a program crash.

Related Solutions

Google Chrome fails to open HTML links or files

Well, it appears nobody encountered this situation before. Since someone could have the same issue some time in the future, I decided not to delete my own question, but to answer it.

I fixed the issue by adding -- "%1" switch, so the registry entry looks like this:

[Computer\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\ChromeHTML\shell\open\command] "C:\Users\Witchunter\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="c:\Users\Witchunter\AppData\Local\ChromeUserData\shortcut-1311099461053" -- "%1"

It is very important that "%1" switch is the last one and that there is a space character between -- and "%1". I am not sure why is this particular switch used this way, but it is crucial to have a space character in between. If this character is not present, new Chrome window will open up displaying "New Tab".

Hope someone finds this useful.

Macos – How to restore Chrome’s list of recently closed tabs

Turn off Chrome while you do this, to avoid any possible conflict over who is editing or changing files.

Find Current Tabs in Time Machine (or whatever backup software you're using) from a time before Chrome lost your tabs.

You'll find it here on a Mac:

~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Current\ Tabs\

or if you use Chrome Canary:

~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome\ Canary/Default/Current\ Tabs

Rename the existing Current Tabs to something else, and restore the one from your backup.

Start Chrome.

You should now see the recently closed tabs under History → Recently Closed.

(If you do not have a backup, or just don't have one handy, you can also try using Last Tabs. It seems like it ought to work, but I have not tested it.)

UPDATE: Since this is likely to happen again (and again and again and...), it's a good idea to take pre-emptive measures to be prepared. The best pre-emptive measure that I've found to make session recovery easier when Chrome drops the ball is to install the Session Buddy Chrome plugin. It does a far better job than the built-in session management, and also better than any other plugin I've tried. (It's also the highest rated, at the moment I'm writing this.)

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