[Tip] Enable Warning Message on Closing Multiple Tabs in Microsoft Edge

This article will help you in enabling warning or confirmation message before closing multiple tabs in Microsoft Edge web browser.

In Microsoft Edge web browser, if you have multiple tabs opened and you accidentally click on Close (x) button present in title bar or you accidentally press Alt+F4 keys, the browser immediately closes all running tabs and doesn’t ask or confirm the action. It may result in data loss. You may lose all opened tabs and any data entered in online forms.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to prevent Microsoft Edge from accidentally closing multiple tabs and how to force Edge to warn or confirm before quit/exit?

“Warn on Close” (also known as “Warn on Quit” or “Warn on Exit”) multiple tabs is an essential feature which must be present in all web browsers. Unfortunately only a few popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Vivaldi come with this feature.

Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers don’t show any warning message or confirmation prompt when user clicks on Close button. Since both browsers are based on same Chromium engine, both provide similar functionality. Opera is an exception which is also based on Chromium engine but provides warn on close functionality as mentioned in this tutorial.

We have discussed this issue in details in following articles:

Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge don’t Confirm or Warn Before Closing Multiple Tabs

[Tip] What To Do When You Accidentally Close Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Opera With Multiple Tabs Open

At that time, it was not possible to enable this functionality in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers but now it’s possible at least in Microsoft Edge.

Edge developer team has added a hidden preference/flag to Microsoft Edge browser which can be modified to bring this useful feature to the browser.

Following screenshot shows warn on close message activated and live in action in Microsoft Edge web browser:

As you can see in above image, Microsoft Edge is showing a message “Do you want to close all tabs?” when trying to close all running tabs.

If you also want to add a warning or confirmation message before closing multiple tabs in Microsoft Edge web browser, following steps will help you:

1. Open Microsoft Edge web browser and type edge://flags/ in addressbar and press Enter. It’ll open the advanced configuration or experiments page.

2. Now type closing in the “Search flags” box.

It’ll directly go to following option:

3. To activate and enable warn on close tabs feature, set the above mentioned option to Enabled using the drop-down box.

4. Microsoft Edge will ask you to restart the browser. Click on “Restart” button to restart Microsoft Edge.

That’s it. You have successfully activated warn on close multiple tabs feature in Microsoft Edge web browser. But you’ll need to enable the feature using Settings page.

5. Click on the 3-dots menu button present at the right-side of the toolbar and select Settings option from the main menu. Alternatively, you can press ALT+F keys together to show Edge Menu and then press S key to open Settings page. You can also directly open Edge Settings page using edge://settings/ URL in address bar.

Now go to Appearance tab and in right-side pane, you’ll see a new option “Ask before closing multiple tabs” added to Customize browser section.

Enable the option and now try to click on “Close” button in title bar. Microsoft Edge will start showing warning message asking for your confirmation.

PS: In future, if you decide to disable or remove warn on close tabs feature, either disable “Ask before closing multiple tabs” option in Microsoft Edge Settings page or set the “Ask Before Closing Multiple Tabs” preference/flag to Disabled in Edge://Flags page.

Also Check:

[Tip] Enable / Disable Warning on Closing Multiple Tabs in All Web Browsers