How to Save All Tabs in Chrome

Google Chrome is an invaluable browser when it comes to researching and browsing the internet for information. It has a bevy of features that make it simple to use and store your valuable data. It also has nifty features that allow you to save content for later, such as bookmarking sites you want to have easy access to, or a comprehensive history to make life easier when looking up past search results.

However, it doesn’t have a built-in feature that allows you to store all of your current tabs for later viewing. While there aren’t many occasions where this would be of use, some people need this feature for their life or work. While there isn’t a quick way to achieve this option, there is a workaround to get the same effect using Google’s bookmarks or some extensions.

Read on to find out how to store all open tabs for later viewing.

How to Save All Tabs in Chrome as Bookmarks

The easiest way to save your current Chrome session is to use the integrated bookmarks options. You can use bookmarks to visit frequently used sites and pages directly, but they have more options than meets the eye. While you can bookmark tab after tab, this can become tedious if you’ve opened dozens of tabs and need to close them again in a hurry. Worry not, as there’s a mass bookmarking option available, without the need for extensions or other software. Here’s what you need to do:

1. (Optional) Click on the three dots icon on the top corner, then find “Show bookmarks bar.” If the option is checked, the bookmarks tab should appear below the navigation bar.
   
2. Right-click on the tabs bar (above the navigation bar), then select “Bookmark all tabs.”
   
3. A dialogue window will open with a textbox and a folder map of your bookmarks. Your tabs will be saved as a list of bookmarks in a folder of your choice.
   

This method of saving tabs will work without any issues on any Windows PC, Mac, or Chromebook. However, it’s fairly rudimentary and doesn’t allow for a lot of management.

How Do You Restore All Tabs in Chrome at Once?

Thankfully, restoring all your saved tabs in Chrome is straightforward if you’ve saved them as bookmarks. We’ll provide details regarding how to do this on a PC version, as the mobile version is less user-friendly:

1. When you want to open your saved tabs, navigate to the saved bookmarks folder, right-click it, then select “Open all” or “Open all in a new window” to create a new version of the Chrome browser to open the saved tabs in. If you want to open a single bookmark, you can select it from the bookmark list under that folder.
   
2. Once you’re done using a bookmarked tab, you can right-click it and select Delete to remove it from the folder. You can also delete the entire folder from the bookmarks list and make space for new bookmarks once you’ve exhausted the list of tabs.
   

Use the dedicated mobile devices section below for instructions on how to open bookmarks on a specific mobile browser.

How Do I Close Chrome and Save All My Tabs?

If you’ve accidentally closed Chrome without saving your previous tabs, you can find them in the History section (Ctrl + H). If you want to reopen the last tab used, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + T (Command + Shift + T for Macs).

To prevent future mishaps, we recommend changing how Chrome saves your sessions:

1. Click on the Options (three dots icon), then select Settings.
   
2. Select “On Startup” from the left-hand menu.
   
3. Choose the option “Continue where you left off.”
   

With this option enabled, Chrome will reopen previously used tabs when you close them. However, this doesn’t prevent a crash from tampering with your tabs, and it might take a long time to load if you’ve amassed a considerable collection.

How to Save All Tabs in Chrome on Mobile

If you’re using a mobile device, you might be wondering how to save all tabs in Chrome on an Android phone or iPhone. Unfortunately, Chrome is somewhat limited in its mobile versions, and it doesn’t even support extensions to make life any easier. However, a workaround exists that gets the same result, albeit not as straightforward as the PC options.

In this method, we’ll be using Chrome’s profile and history features to back up tabs:

1. You need to log in to Chrome on your mobile device and your PC for this to work. Use the same account for both devices. You can keep both devices running simultaneously.
   
2. Close Chrome on your mobile device without closing the tabs.
   
3. Open Chrome on your PC, then open the History tab. Use the shortcut Ctrl + H (or Command + H on Mac), or go through the Options (three dots) menu to access it.
   
4. In the History tab, select “Tabs from other devices” on the left-hand menu.
   
5. The most recent tabs from your mobile device should appear in the history list. The list might also hold tabs you’ve previously closed.
   
6. Open the desired pages on Chrome on your PC. Use Right-Click > “Open link in new tab” or click the middle mouse button to expedite the process a bit.
   
7. Once the tabs have been loaded on Chrome, close all unnecessary tabs (such as the History tab itself).
   
8. Use the above-described method to save all the current tabs in Chrome as bookmarks. Save the bookmarks folder in the main Bookmarks tab for easier access, and rearrange it against other items as needed.
   
9. You can now open the saved bookmarks from your mobile device.
10. Tap on the three dots icon on the corner, then tap on Bookmarks to bring up the Bookmark menu on your Android/iPhone.
    
11. Open the saved bookmarks folder, then select the page you want to open.
    
12. If you want to open multiple tabs at once, tap on the three dots next to one of the entries on the list, then tap Select.
    

In the selection menu, tap on the items you want to include, then tap on the three dots on the top corner and select “Open in new tab.”

The other method of storing your tabs on a mobile device includes turning on your phone’s developer settings and using JSON to extract all URLs’ raw text in the current tabs. We don’t recommend this method unless you’re an advanced user and thus, we won’t detail the process here. However, you can see the details involved and learn how to do it here. While there aren’t many chances of screwing the phone up, the unwieldy extraction and requirements of separate software make it less suitable for daily use.

Extracting tabs from a mobile device is more unwieldy than using the PC version of Chrome, but there are seemingly no plans to add the bookmarking feature to the mobile browsers as yet. If Google includes such an option in a later update, we’ll edit the article as needed.

The Best Chrome Extension for Saving Tabs

While using bookmarks is quick and doesn’t require using third-party software, one of Chrome’s significant benefits is the extension marketplace that gives it additional features and functionalities. Many extensions were developed to exclusively help users manage their tabs and sessions and help them restore previous ones.

One of the best of these extensions is the Session Buddy. With over 1 million downloads, it’s proven to be a reliable and effective session-saving method.

Other examples of useful extensions include Cluster, OneTab, Tabs Outliner, and The Great Suspender, which work on a slightly different axis to save battery life and RAM usage.

You can browse the Google store to see what features you prefer in a tab manager and test each one out with a few tabs to get a feel for what you require.

Saved and Ready

With these instructions, you can save your Chrome tabs and not worry about losing your precious research data for a big project. Chrome’s baseline bookmark feature will usually work well for most users, but users who handle many tabs at once might need to enlist the help of an extension to get them through.

What tab-saving method do you use on Chrome? How many tabs do you have saved? Let us know in the comments section below.