Open Recently Closed Tabs on Chrome

Let’s start with the quickest method.

1. Keyboard Shortcuts

To quickly bring back the Chrome tab that you just closed, use the Chrome keyboard shortcut. On Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS, press Ctrl+Shift+T. On Mac, you can use Command+Shift+T to reopen the last closed tab in that order. So you can use the same shortcut multiple times to bring back all previously closed tabs in this session. Apart from just tabs, if you have closed an entire Chrome window by mistake, you can use the same shortcut to reopen that window.

2. Cursor Shortcut

Alternatively, you can just use a mouse or trackpad to bring back the tab. Just right-click on the top bar of the Chrome browser in the empty space, and you should get Reopen closed tab option in the menu. Click on it to reopen the last closed browser tab. You can continue the steps to bring back all the closed tabs one after another in the same order they were last closed. Similar to the keyboard shortcut, when you close a browser window, it will show the Reopen closed window option in the right-click menu. Clicking on that option will open a recently closed Chrome window.

While the previous methods are useful to quickly open recently closed tabs, they won’t let you open a specific tab from multiple tabs that you just closed. To open a specific tab, click on the down-arrow at the top-right corner. On Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS, you should find it beside the minimize button. Whereas on the Mac, the down arrow is the only icon you should see in the top-right corner. Click on it and in the drop-down, you should find all the tabs that you have opened in all the Chrome windows. Scroll down and you should see the Recently Closed section. Click on the tab that you want to reopen here. To open tab search, instead of the down arrow, you can also use keyboard shortcuts. On Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS, press Ctrl+Shift+A. On Mac, press Command+Shift+A to open the Tab search.

4. Recent Tabs Option

All the previous methods only work on the desktop, but this method works great on the mobile. To open any recently closed tab on the Chrome mobile app, tap on the three-dot menu at the top right corner. Then select the Recent tabs option. This will open a list of the tabs that you have closed recently. Scroll and select any tab option to open it instantly. This won’t open a closed website but a closed tab. So you can choose to go back to the previous searches you did on that tab. This option is also available on the desktop. Click on the three-dot menu and hover on the History option. In the sub-menu, you should find a Recently closed section with the tabs that you have closed recently. You can select any tab from here to re-open it. On the desktop, you can prefer the Tab Search option, as it’s not hidden, supports keyboard shortcuts, and the UI is also spacious.

5. Chrome Restore Pop-Up

When Chrome closes unintentionally like when you shut down the PC/Mac or when the browser crashes, it will show a pop-up asking if you want to continue where you left off the next time you open the browser. It will reopen all the Chrome tabs in all the Chrome windows at once with a single click. But, there is no option to manually restore all the tabs when you relaunch Chrome. Chrome itself will send you the Restore Pages pop-up.

Bonus: Save Tabs Manually With Extensions

In the previous methods, you had to rely on Chrome’s pop-up. But you can use extensions like Toby and Session buddy to save tabs manually when closing the Chrome browser or browser window. Now when you get back to work, you can reopen any recently closed Chrome tabs instantly as you have already saved them manually. These extensions also come in handy to open all the required tabs at once, so that you can get into work within minutes without the need for set-up. A quick tip ⏤ open the three-dot menu > Settings > On Start-up and select the option Continue where you left off. This way when you close and reopen the browser, all the tabs will be available just like you left them before.

Open Recently Closed Tabs on Chrome

Chrome can only show you recent tabs for a limited time and only can display tabs from this session. If you want to find previous tabs, the only option for you is to get into the browsing history and search for the website that you are looking for. This will not open the tab but at least finds the web page to continue browsing. Also check out, how you can send links from phone to desktop or vice versa.