Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Lost all tabs

  • 6 replies
  • 12 have this problem
  • 176 views
  • Last reply by e-raser

more options

I just opened my iOS Firefox browser to find that all my tabs have been closed. Please assist!

Thank you!

I just opened my iOS Firefox browser to find that all my tabs have been closed. Please assist! Thank you!

All Replies (6)

more options

Hey there! I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with your tabs in Firefox for iOS. Losing all your tabs can be frustrating, but don't worry, we can help you get them back. This might have happened due to a browser update or a glitch. To fix it, try closing the app completely and reopening it. If that doesn't work, tap the tabs icon in the bottom-right corner (it looks like two squares) to see if your tabs are in the recently closed section. If they're not there, you can check if they were synced to your Firefox account. Tap the three lines in the bottom-right corner, then tap on your account name and choose "Synced Tabs." Hopefully, you'll be able to restore your tabs from there. If you still can't find them, feel free to reach out again.

more options

Thanks suram080! This didn't work - there is no option for Synced Tabs in my account (see screenshot attached). Restarting the app also does not work. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

more options

Hey I just had my Firefox app crash and lost all my tabs too, but I was able to kind of recover the non-private tabs but it's a very specific case that requires some technical knowledge that might not be available for you anymore. Also you wont get the tabs back directly on your phone, youll just get a list of them on your computer.

Specifically, in my case, I had synced tabs setup on my phone, and I had a laptop that has synced tabs with the iphone before it all got deleted. For this to work you need to either do this immediately after you lose your tabs, like within 30 min OR have a laptop that has synced tabs with the iphone but that has been turned off/internet off, so that it doesn't have the chance to sync again.

  1. Basically, turn off wifi on your laptop so firefox can't sync again.
  2. Then, go into where your firefox appdata is stored (im on windows, I just went to %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ which for me ended up as something like Appdata/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/(some random letters).default-release).
  3. Then copy the synced-tabs.db (and maybe the other synced-tabs files too, idk what they do but maybe someone else has a better idea to use them somehow) to some other location.
  4. Then open the copied synced-tabs.db in some db viewer like https://sqliteviewer.app (you can move the file to some other laptop with wifi enabled to be safe).
  5. Then, in the tabs table there should hopefully be an entry with a record field containing a long JSON text blurb of all the tabs and the device it was from.
  6. Copy that text and put it into some JSON viewer like https://codebeautify.org/jsonviewer. And there should be your list of tabs, you'll have to manually enter them back into your firefox app if you want them there but at least now you have a record of them.

Keep in mind that if you wait too long on your laptop with wifi enabled, Firefox will sync and erase those tabs. So try to do this ASAP and turn off wifi ASAP.

more options

Same happened to me once updated to Firefox for iOS 116.1 (App Store update from 2023-08-09)!

I urgently need my more than 50 open tabs back! Few of them inactive, some in private browsing.

If you unrecoverable lost all my open tabs/data dear Mozilla, this would be the end of using Firefox on iOS. I‘m so damn angry!!!

more options
more options