Is there a way to retrieve previously open tabs?

orecchionebruno

Hello folks,

After to have installed last updated, for some reason two session of Vivaldi has been opened and unfortunately I closed the right one with my opened tabs and so on and I lost all them because the second session was opened (I think this is the reason).

Is there way to find previous tabs and their organization?

Thanks

iPristy

You have the trash icon on the right, it looks ugly i know, but that will do the trick.

orecchionebruno

I'll try, Thankssss

BoneTone

@orecchionebruno I find the AutoSave Sessions Mod very useful. It'll save your current session every X minutes, and keep the Y most recent autosaved sessions -- two independent variables you can configure. I have mine set to 20 minutes, and 10 sessions.

mallen

This answer may be too late... but you can try a rollback to a backup of these files if you have them.

c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default

~~Oh. Hang on. This used to be easy. There used to be a Current Session \ Current Tabs and Last Session \ Last Tabs set of files you could swap around.~~

~~Something has changed in latest updates and now it looks like this data has moved to a sub folder called Sessions but the process is still likely similar.~~

~~I do this myself at times in error - and it is annoying due to always having many many tabs open between sessions. I'll go do a test and return...~~

But the key is now - go make a COPY of whatever is in the folder:
c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default\Sessions

~~Back in five mins...~~

mallen

Firstly - a disclaimer. Only read the following if you are comfortable about going into your profile and deleting two files. If you are unsure in anyway, don't try this.

I know your pain. This is not about trash as they are not in there. You lost the session, but Vivaldi has your back. Go look into the folder
c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Vivaldi\User Data\Default\Sessions

Make sure you have DETAILS view enabled in the browser and look at the dates and time stamps.

You will see two files - one called TABS one called SESSIONS.

Hopefully you haven't restarted Vivaldi otherwise you will already of lost your old session. If that is the case you'll need to use a rollback of some form.

All you need to do is note the TIME stamps. Notice my example above I have copies from when I shut down last night. All I do is close Vivaldi, and delete those current newer sessions to hide them. Careful to keep the ones with the time stamp of last night. Now when I reopen Vivaldi it has my 50+ tabs I saw last night on view again.

This will be extra easy to spot with your disaster due to your "current" sessions being much smaller in size. So delete the small ones.

I have just tested this. All is good.

If you are paranoid, then backup those four files before trying this.

Edited to add: This is actually a much simpler method than I used to have to do. As a mad person who usually has 50+ tabs open it is horrific for me when I accidentally close them all in error.

orecchionebruno

Thanks @BoneTone I will start to save my sessions, and this trick will be very useful for the future

@mallen you are right, unfortunately the Trash is empty and in the path that you have mentioned the sessions don't include the previous

grrr... I lost them, or there is some automatic backup that includes sessions somewhere?

mallen

@orecchionebruno pity you have missed it this time. But next time you will know to just freeze and go look. Don't close the browser until you find them.

If you are running Windows, you may be lucky with an OS backup. Right Click the Sessions folder and check the Previous Versions tab. Is it alive on your PC? Do you have backups? Or are you unlucky with a copy of Win10 Home?

orecchionebruno

@mallen I have not a full backup I have a copy of my Bookmarks only...

Before I didn't have a Vivaldi account but now I think that will be enough to synchronize it :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_cold_sweat:

titanium

Yes, that's why I save my tabs regularly going to :
File > Save Open Tabs as Session...

You can open them later in File > Open Saved Session...

BoneTone

@mallen said in Is there a way to retrieve previously open tabs?:

pity you have missed it this time. But next time you will know to just freeze and go look. Don't close the browser until you find them.

Or better yet, just install the mod I linked previously and there's no need for all that work. Simply open up one of the autosaved sessions if it's too large for, or has been overwritten in, or is otherwise unavailable in the trash bin.

As a side note, the trash bin holds 25 items. A closed window will appear as a folder and counts as one item, just like individually closed tabs.

BoneTone

@titanium said in Is there a way to retrieve previously open tabs?:

Yes, that's why I save my tabs regularly going to :
File > Save Open Tabs as Session...

Install the mod I linked previously and it'll do that for you.

BoneTone

@orecchionebruno said in Is there a way to retrieve previously open tabs?:

Before I didn't have a Vivaldi account but now I think that will be enough to synchronize it

A sync won't restore your local tabs, but tabs from other synced instances will be available as cloud tabs, if you choose to sync them, or sync everything.

mallen

@BoneTone said:

As a side note, the trash bin holds 25 items. A closed window will appear as a folder and counts as one item, just like individually closed tabs.

Have you actually seen this happen in the trash? In the past when I accidentally did this myself there was no trace in the trash.

It is easily done. Have your main session open, then open a second window, and now close the first. Then close the second. This never used to appear in the trash which is why I found manual hacks to fix it in the past. Even the history was not much use to reopen the older tabs I have left open.

(Another time I'd trigger it is accidentally selecting "close all tabs to the left" from the menu... but being able to edit the menus now has fixed that potential slipup for me)

The add-on you point to is certainly a good saviour for this issue. Best answer here. Though I hope my Emergency Fix will help other people who come here looking for this and don't yet have that add-on.

This is what is so nice about Vivalidi - this kind of flexibility allows us to mould a browser to our needs and not what Google\Mozilla dictate.

@BoneTone said:

A sync won't restore your local tabs, but tabs from other synced instances will be available as cloud tabs, if you choose to sync them, or sync everything.

Eeek!! So Sync would have actually have made this worse as the session will be gone everywhere. I guess that also means you can't have a sync'd Vivaldi opened on two PCs at the same time as only the "last closed" one is kept?

BoneTone

@mallen said in Is there a way to retrieve previously open tabs?:

@BoneTone said:

As a side note, the trash bin holds 25 items. A closed window will appear as a folder and counts as one item, just like individually closed tabs.

Have you actually seen this happen in the trash? In the past when I accidentally did this myself there was no trace in the trash.

It is easily done. Have your main session open, then open a second window, and now close the first. Then close the second. This never used to appear in the trash which is why I found manual hacks to fix it in the past. Even the history was not much use to reopen the older tabs I have left open.

OK, so you're talking about two different things here. In your scenario, closing the first window would send it to the trash bin. Closing the second window isn't a close window event, it's an exit browser event. There's no need to send anything to the trash bin, nor any need for digging into the profile folder and mucking with it (something that can easily cause a corrupted profile for users who don't know what they're doing and lead to even greater data loss). Rather, just enable the option to restore your session, and everything that was in the second window will automatically be loaded the next time you start Vivaldi. If instead of closing any windows, after you've created both windows, you choose "exit" from the menu, then both windows would be restored the next time Vivaldi is started.

(Another time I'd trigger it is accidentally selecting "close all tabs to the left" from the menu... but being able to edit the menus now has fixed that potential slipup for me)

All those tabs (up to 25) will go into the trash bin. If you're like me and use hundreds of tabs at a time, it's possible that's insufficient, but the mod protects against user error like this, and of course all the pages will be in the history, which is less efficient than the mod but much safer than trying to do anything in the profile which isn't guaranteed to work as it is.

The add-on you point to is certainly a good saviour for this issue. Best answer here. Though I hope my Emergency Fix will help other people who come here looking for this and don't yet have that add-on.

The emergency fix really should only be used in extreme emergencies. It's risky, especially for users who weren't aware of it already. It would be much safer to just find the desired pages in history if the user doesn't have the AutoSave Sessions Mod installed.

This is what is so nice about Vivalidi - this kind of flexibility allows us to mould a browser to our needs and not what Google\Mozilla dictate.

Agreed. Users cannot create & share such powerful mods in most (if not all) other browsers.

@BoneTone said:

A sync won't restore your local tabs, but tabs from other synced instances will be available as cloud tabs, if you choose to sync them, or sync everything.

Eeek!! So Sync would have actually have made this worse as the session will be gone everywhere. I guess that also means you can't have a sync'd Vivaldi opened on two PCs at the same time as only the "last closed" one is kept?

It certainly isn't making anything worse. It's not touching the local session. It does not affect it in any way. The cloud tabs are separate, and are an easy way to access open tabs from other synced instances of Vivaldi, if they are (or everything is) configured to sync.

mallen

@BoneTone I guess you have never actually had this happen to you as you are talking theory. You can start two SEPARATE instances of the browser. Sometimes you get a slow start of the app and click the icon again. Sometimes you just launch a second window in error. But believe me when I say you didn't used to get the old Session put into the bin.

That new "blank" session knows nothing of the session with 50+ tabs open. So when it closes, then the other multi-tabbed session is not in the bin of the empty session. I have looked.

(And trying to reopen all those pages from History is not feasible. Especially if you have been looking at other pages during the day... I also tried that option. Haha - this is experience talking here.)

I used to do this with the OS's own built in RollBack \ Previous Versions on just the session files. And then I spotted that Vivalidi also had its own safety net of "Last Session\Last Tabs". A safety net that is now moved to its own folders.

The "hack fix" I document above is not going to damage anyones profile. The worst thing that can happen is they end up with no tabs open in their browser. A state they already have if they are attempting this.

BoneTone

@mallen of course the second window doesn't have the old session, it's a new window. This isn't theory, this is how the software works. It sounds like you had a user error in the past and didn't understand how the software worked. When you have more than one window running, they're all part of the same session. If you have some repro that creates two current sessions in the same profile, please report that bug and share it.

The so called "hack" is indeed risky. The entire reason someone is doing is because of user error. Then your directing them to start mucking around in the profile folder. There have been many users who did just that, made an error, corrupted their profile, at which point the solution is, wait for it, delete the profile. Losing one's profile is much worse than losing a session.

mallen

Are you this angry with everyone? Not everyone is the idiot you assume they are. I'll add a disclaimer to the original post to tell people to be careful.

BoneTone

@mallen What part of my post expressed any anger? It's pretty much devoid of emotion, and simply explaining how the software works, and asking if there is any to reproduce what you say has happened, then let's fix it.