[Tip] How to Restart Mozilla Firefox With All Opened Tabs
If you are using Mozilla Firefox web browser, this might be very useful trick for you. Many times Firefox starts taking lots of system resources/RAM amount and starts running very slowly and takes lots of time in opening new tabs, etc. Also many times it stops opening links clicked from other programs. For example, I use Windows Live Mail (WLM) desktop email client and Mozilla Firefox and many times it happens when I click on a hyperlink in an email inside WLM, it doesn’t open in Firefox. Nothing happens when I click on the link and if I close Firefox and re-launch it, everything starts working fine and the link opens fine in Firefox.
So many times to fix problems and performance issues, we need to restart Firefox but what if we have already running lots of tabs in Firefox? If we have opened many tabs in Firefox and we close and relaunch Firefox, we’ll lose all current tabs and we’ll need to reopen them from history.
In such conditions, the best solution is to restart Firefox using standard and built-in command in Firefox web browser. Actually Firefox allows you to restart itself at any time whenever you want and it’ll relaunch itself with all previously running tabs, so you’ll again have all opened tabs even after a fresh restart. Following animated image shows the whole process in action:
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If you also want to know the trick to restart Firefox with all opened tabs, check out following simple steps. It’ll not require installing any extra extension, add-on or plug-in. Its just a small built-in command of Firefox.
New Working Method: [Tip] How to Restart Mozilla Firefox Without Losing Tabs
1. Press SHIFT+F2 keys together to launch Developer toolbar.
This toolbar is also known as also known as GCLI (Graphical Command Line Interpreter).
2. Now type restart inside the developers toolbar and press Enter key.
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That’s it. It’ll immediately restart Firefox and all your previously opened tabs were saved and will be opened again without any issues.
There are many extensions/add-ons are available to add restart button to Firefox toolbar but this simple method is the best as it doesn’t require any addition add-on. Just 2 small steps and you can restart Firefox and get smoothly running Firefox again.
NOTE: If you are using Google Chrome, Opera or Microsoft Edge web browsers, check out following article:
[Tip] How to Restart Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Opera Without Losing Tabs
That is a handy tip for Firefox. Wished I had known about it sooner.
I recently had to switch back to Chrome as FFox 45 both x32 and x64 on Windows7. Memory usage would shoot up to 1.5GB with only a standard 5 tabs open. The issue did not occur on start up but only over a couple of hours of usage. I paired the extensions down to Lastpass and UBlock origin and that did not seem to help.
There use to be an extension to show where the memory usage of each extension but that one is not compatible with FFox 45.
FYI, tested. it doesn’t work when FF is on Private Browsing Mode
^^ Worked fine here in private browsing mode as well.
Or, use the “Unload Tab” Firefox add-on:
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/unloadtab/
Advantage, while browsing: — Unload Tab also unloads “inactive tabs” — that have remained open for a time that you set.
Then, after restarting Firefox, only the currently- displayed tab is loaded.
Except where you’ve added a website to the Unload Tab setting, to “Keep address loaded”.
well it didn’t restore my private browsing windows…
still thanks, your tweaks are really cool!!! 🙂
it didn’t restore private browsing windows in my PC
but thanks for the tips anyway…
I use Comodo IceDragon, A faster, more secure version of Firefox and it’s always done this automatically. No tricks needed
Firefox 67 cannot use this command. Goes about:profiles then click restart button
^^ Check following:
https://www.askvg.com/tip-how-to-restart-mozilla-firefox-without-losing-tabs/
dr.strangth – works, but:
restart(false)