1423125 - Let Shift-Ctrl-T / Shift-Cmd-T restore the previous session if there isn't a tab to reopen

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Session Restore, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Edd Chang]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/62.0.3202.94 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

When Firefox closes and you open it back up there's no short cut keys for restoring the previous session. For example, Chrome/Opera allows to restore the previous session tabs with CTRL+SHIFT+T. Or even reopening a tab quickly if you close it by accident. 


Actual results:

You have to go to the menu and click on the option there. 


Expected results:

There should be a shortcut key to quickly do this instead of having a mouse travel and two clicks

Comment 1

[Edd Chang]

Attachment: Capture.PNG

The option marked in the image is under discussion. There's no short cut key designated for this function.

Comment 2

[Peter Dolanjski [:pdol]]

Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It sounds reasonable that we should have one.

Comment 3

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

(In reply to Peter Dolanjski [:pdol] from comment #2)
> Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It
> sounds reasonable that we should have one.

We don't have a strict process for deciding shortcut keys. But typically it's for actions that might be high frequency while using Firefox; e.g. Bookmarking or making a New Tab. 

It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action. Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?

It's worth noting that we have two recovery keys now:

- Ctrl-Shift-T = Reopen closed tabs
- Ctrl-Shift-N = Reopen closed windows

Chrome only has Ctrl-Shift-T as an a master undo for all tab and window close operations. Which might be a better approach. We also are running out of available shortcut keys :)

Comment 4

[pedrohega]

(In reply to Stephen Horlander [:shorlander] from comment #3)
> (In reply to Peter Dolanjski [:pdol] from comment #2)
> > Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It
> > sounds reasonable that we should have one.
> 
> We don't have a strict process for deciding shortcut keys. But typically
> it's for actions that might be high frequency while using Firefox; e.g.
> Bookmarking or making a New Tab. 
> 
> It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action.
> Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session
> would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?
> 
> It's worth noting that we have two recovery keys now:
> 
> - Ctrl-Shift-T = Reopen closed tabs
> - Ctrl-Shift-N = Reopen closed windows
> 
> Chrome only has Ctrl-Shift-T as an a master undo for all tab and window
> close operations. Which might be a better approach. We also are running out
> of available shortcut keys :)


I switched to firefox today, after being a chrome user for years. 

On google chrome, if you keep pressing ctrl+shift+t it will keep reopening the last closed tab. If a window was closed last, it will reopen those windows. Ctrl+shift+t will just keep restoring things infinitely, which is one of the most fantastic and useful things in google chrome. Restoring a set of closed tabs includes the behavior of reopening a "session". 

Whenever I show people this shortcut they go "Oh, that's awesome I did not now you could do that!". I thought this was default behavior in all browsers, but on firefox, if the last closed tab was a window, it will not restore that. This behavior is extremely annoying. 

As for the arrogant developer who asked if this was a "high frequency action", I can add my experience:

I can keep up with websites sometimes having little layout bugs, or the other quirks of firefox. 
But this single feature is so important to me that it would single-handedly make me give up on using firefox.

Comment 5

[pedrohega]

(In reply to pedrohega from comment #4)
> (In reply to Stephen Horlander [:shorlander] from comment #3)
> > (In reply to Peter Dolanjski [:pdol] from comment #2)
> > > Shorlander, who decides on our short cut keys for something like this?  It
> > > sounds reasonable that we should have one.
> > 
> > We don't have a strict process for deciding shortcut keys. But typically
> > it's for actions that might be high frequency while using Firefox; e.g.
> > Bookmarking or making a New Tab. 
> > 
> > It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action.
> > Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session
> > would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?
> > 
> > It's worth noting that we have two recovery keys now:
> > 
> > - Ctrl-Shift-T = Reopen closed tabs
> > - Ctrl-Shift-N = Reopen closed windows
> > 
> > Chrome only has Ctrl-Shift-T as an a master undo for all tab and window
> > close operations. Which might be a better approach. We also are running out
> > of available shortcut keys :)
> 
> 
> I switched to firefox today, after being a chrome user for years. 
> 
> On google chrome, if you keep pressing ctrl+shift+t it will keep reopening
> the last closed tab. If a window was closed last, it will reopen those
> windows. Ctrl+shift+t will just keep restoring things infinitely, which is
> one of the most fantastic and useful things in google chrome. Restoring a
> set of closed tabs includes the behavior of reopening a "session". 
> 
> Whenever I show people this shortcut they go "Oh, that's awesome I did not
> now you could do that!". I thought this was default behavior in all
> browsers, but on firefox, if the last closed tab was a window, it will not
> restore that. This behavior is extremely annoying. 
> 
> As for the arrogant developer who asked if this was a "high frequency
> action", I can add my experience:
> 
> I can keep up with websites sometimes having little layout bugs, or the
> other quirks of firefox. 
> But this single feature is so important to me that it would single-handedly
> make me give up on using firefox.

The way google chrome works is also the default behavior on Safari as well. 

And since with the exception of safari, every other browser is chromium based, ctrl+shift+t to reopen tabs/windows is the default behavior. Only on firefox it is crippled. Maybe it is because of little polish, things like these, that Firefox is getting unpopular.

Comment 6

[753]

I'm going to have to agree, not being able to Restore Previous Session with Ctrl-Shift-T when there are no tabs to restore is one of my biggest problems with Firefox compared to other browsers which do this. I don't see any reason not to have this feature since it doesn't take up any additional keybinds.

Comment 7

[Andy]

I created an account on bugzilla just to say that the current behavior is surprising to say the least and really has no reason for being. Ctrl+Shift+T should reopen the last closed tab, and if multiple tabs happened to be closed at once, then it should reopen all of those tabs.

Comment 8

[Dan]

Having just researched a way to do this having wanted to since I switched to Firefox a year or so ago, I came across this bug and have opened a Bugzilla account in order to add my adamant support for this feature as described in the above comments. It was a great feature within Chrome for when you accidentally close the browser or need to get back to what you were doing last time as quickly as possible.

Comment 9

[bryan.paradis]

Decided to give Firefox another shot. It's looking pretty slick. I am really onboard with Mozilla's views on privacy. I am really missing this feature from Chrome and have created an account here to voice this.

Comment 10

[kedarmpster]

Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?

Another one of those questions that only developers ask, not a real project manager. No wonder the team wasted 3 years lying in the backlog. You want reasons, eh?

1. Windows updates that require restarts
2. Power cuts (if you're shocked, realize that a lot of the world does not get constant power 100% of the time
3. FF crashes, for whatever reason
4. Maybe a user actually closed tabs, and then the next time they genuinely want them back. (You can't just force users to make them bookmark everything all the time - we're not robots)

Make it easier for people to switch to FF from err.. the most popular browsers out there! Give them the ability. Ask such questions when you have enough users that you won't care when a few stop using FF. Or maybe you feel like you already do! Moments like these make the average user switch back to the other browsers, privacy be damned.

Until there's real change, I'm always going to have (some of) the other browsers right beside FF - can never truly rely on FF.

Comment 11

[Julian Merida]

I recently came from Google Chrome and wanted to give firefox a try and maybe get more involved in the community to help make it better. But I just find the missing of this feature to be soo annoying that I cannot completely get into firefox as I am really used to it. And I don't understand why there isn't a propery shortcut to do this.

Some previous comment said that enable restoring previous session could be an option but I have to disagree with this. As sometimes I close many tabs that I don't need anymore and when I open firefox again after some time I have to wait many seconds so it can load all the previous tabs. This is a workaround isn't feaseble at all.

I really hope this feature to be included in the following updates as it is very very simple to implement.

Comment 12

[nanobyte]

Agreed! I'm trying to make the switch to Firefox as my primary browser, but this is the single most annoying omission.

Comment 13

[utomo.calvin]

ctrl+shift+t is also a single shortcut that save 3 (restore tab, restore new window, restore session), freeing ctrl+shift+n which is used for new private window in other browsers

Comment 14

[uspasojevic96]

Any plans on making this a reality? I have switched to FF couple days ago and it's something I had to google to find out that it doesn't exist, or you could implement a way for us to modify shortcuts, that works also

Comment 15

[ostrain]

I would love to see this as well. In addition to being more consistent with other browsers, here's another reason why: cmd-W is overloaded to either close the current tab or close the window (if it only contains one tab).

It makes sense for cmd-shift-T to be overloaded in the same way, so that whenever I hit cmd-W I can undo it with cmd-shift-T (regardless of whether a tab or a window was closed by the cmd-W).

Comment 16

[nolanbc]

Created an account just to comment on this. Adding my support that one of the following enhancements gets added:

• overloading ctrl-shift-t to open closed tabs, windows, and sessions (preferred)
• keyboard shortcut to re-open previous session

I jumped from Chrome a few months ago as well and this is the one feature I sorely miss.

Comment 17

[ristein]

+1

Comment 18

[753]

Now that "Restore Previous Session" is hidden under History, it's even more important to have a hotkey to do this. With the UI becoming worse each update, we at least need proper hotkeys.

Comment 19

[ck117]

I too, created an account to add support to this.

This is a deal breaker for me. I've run into other problems with firefox but I ignore them to support firefox. As a web developer I know that almost all devs use chrome, so websites work on chrome the most. Safari, Firefox, Edge specific bugs occur but rarely do chrome specific bugs occur because those bugs are caught in development.

I dont put the blame on that on firefox. The whole reason I tried firefox was to do my part in keeping Chrome and google from being the all powerful big bully on the internet playground.

All this to say that I'd rather be on chrome from just a consumer standpoint.

You dont have to capitulate to us, but I read this whole thread and I dont see a reason why this feature isn't implemented. Would it require using more system resources? If you're doing it for our own good, there should be a stickied answer.

"Not being a good use case" when every other browser does this, and all these users have independently come upon this thread, is a ridiculous answer. That sounds like a joke I would make in grooming. For every person who bothered to make an account to give this feedback, I'm sure 10x as many just switched out.

Comment 20

[cappelletti.william]

+1: This feature missing is a huge drawback

Comment 21

[grodo]

I'm a Chrome user but I'd very much love to move to Firefox. So every couple of months I check if by any chance Firefox finally implemented proper tab/window/session restore using a shortcut. And sadly every couple of months I go back to Chrome just because of this single missing feature. It's so important for my way of working with multiple windows/tabs that I wasn't able to justify the switch yet. Having a single Ctrl-Shift-T shortcut to restore the last closed thing without having to think whether it was a tab or a window or a window from previous session makes absolute sense from user's point of view.

Comment 22

[reuben.steenekamp]

+1 The majority of time I am starting up Firefox is to restore a previous session. Overloading Ctrl+Shift+t with restore session is what I expect as behaviour.

Comment 23

[huandney]

My two biggest difficulties in migrating back to firefox is not being able to restore previous session, as chrome does, and not having a native page translation system.

Comment 24

[roycolton]

Just found out that "restoring previous session on startup" does effectively the same thing, it can be found in settings -> general -> startup -> check mark "Open previous windows and tabs".

Comment 25

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:dao, since the bug has recent activity, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 26

[eltenzy]

Any reason this hasn't been added yet? Very frustrating not being able to quickly restore my previous session when opening Firefox up.

Comment 27

[jaye.r.mcc]

Also made an account for this issue. Please implement.

Comment 28

[Matias N. Goldberg]

It's not clear to me that restoring a session is a high frequency action. Or, if it is, why is it? If someone wants to frequently restore a session would permanently turning on session restore be the better option?

IMHO this is a completely flawed metric. It may just happen every user who would like this feature sees Firefox doesn't have it and decides to use Chrome instead.

Hence all your data will show your regular userbase doesn't use it; but it doesn't mean it's irrelevant. Specially when your data contains only 3.14% of the market share.

Furthermore, you can't conclude it is or it's not a high frequency action when there is no hotkey that allows a user to quickly and easily use such action; and the UI option is hidden inside History. I have to actively search for the option and often I give up and go back to Chrome instead.

Comment 29

[ck117]

I've had email subscriptions for this thread for like 4 years lol.

This is one of the issues that made me give up on firefox. I use this hotkey maybe once a day and thats enough for it to matter to me

I close my tabs a lot and try to keep minimal background tabs open when I browse.

Sometimes Ill close a window with single/multiple tabs that was dedicated to a topic because I think I'm done, only to realize I'm not done. This will occur when I

1. am reading about something new, where different branches of something. For example I'm researching headphones which leads me to 3 different subtopics => IEMs, whats an amp?, are wireless ones good. I close one ("ok I dont think IEMs are relevant to me") only to find out I need it back. "oh they're cheap relative to headphones I should keep reading about them"

2. I will use browser windows for slack/discord if I want to keep monitoring one without switching my focus to it. If I accidentally close it while alt tabbing and ctrl (or command) W'ing, I like to be able to open it back easily

3. making plans for IRL stuff. I close the window with all the restaurants but then want to open it back up because someone had a question.

I realize people who use hotkeys are a minority, so I'm not trying to give you guys crap. We in this thread just aren't as important as people waiting on more popular issues. But this (alongside bugs on android and usability inferiority on ios) was enough for me to change back.

Comment 30

[753]

I've also been emailed for each reply to this thread for 4 years, and it really still is one of the biggest problems I have with Firefox. Does the severity being updated to S3 mean this will finally be addressed?

Comment 31

[pederi.gergo]

(In reply to 753 from comment #30)

I've also been emailed for each reply to this thread for 4 years, and it really still is one of the biggest problems I have with Firefox. Does the severity being updated to S3 mean this will finally be addressed?

I'm afraid not. S3 still means normal, they have just migrated to numbered labels and they also have P5 - "Will not fix, but will accept a patch" , the lowest priority label on it. And just as ck117 said, they have many other higher prio bugs, so most probably it has to be done by community.

Comment 32

[Sören Hentzschel]

S3 still means normal, they have just migrated to numbered labels and they also have P5

Severity (S) and Priority (P) are different things.

Comment 33

[ck117]

(In reply to Sören Hentzschel from comment #32)

S3 still means normal, they have just migrated to numbered labels and they also have P5

Severity (S) and Priority (P) are different things.

what an unpleasant engineer thing to say lol. He goes on IMMEDIATELY to explain the priority on it. It has both a severity and priority. No one here was confused on the differences

Comment 34

[pederi.gergo]

For anyone interested, there is a newer feedback platform for Mozilla, where the same "Idea" is also up for user votes, so maybe, just maybe, if people are pushing it there as well, we might get a solution:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/shortcut-to-restore-previous-session/idi-p/221

And another idea which is slightly related:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/customizable-hotkeys/idi-p/4979

Comment 37

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Attachment: Bug 1423125 - Restore previous session if undoCloseTab is called with no more tabs to restore. r?dao!

Comment 38

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/d29c1fad7862
Restore previous session if undoCloseTab is called with no more tabs to restore. r=dao

Comment 39

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]:

We've added a new way to retrieve the previous session if one exists.

[Affects Firefox for Android]:

No.

[Suggested wording]:

You've always been able to un-close a tab by using (Cmd/Ctrl)-Shift-T. Now, that same shortcut will restore the previous session if there are no more closed tabs from the same session to re-open.

[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]:

None.

Comment 40

[Norisz Fay [:noriszfay]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d29c1fad7862

Comment 41

[Dianna Smith [:diannaS]]

Relnote for nightly is available at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/112.0a1/releasenotes/

Comment 42

[nicoleta.sibisan]

Used steps:

1. Launch Fx.
2. Open several web pages in different tabs. (https://www.youtube.com/, https://www.google.com/maps, https://www.bbc.com/)
3. Quit Fx.
4. Open again Fx.
5. Open other 2 pages in different tabs (https://www.facebook.com/, https://www.wikipedia.org/).
6. Close one of the tabs/pages (https://www.wikipedia.org/).
7. Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T -> to reopen the tab closed at step 6. (in the same window)
8. Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T -> to reopen the tabs closed in step 3. (in the same window)

Verified - fixed: on Win 11, Ubuntu 22 and MacOs12 in Fx versions: 112.0b7, 13.0a1 (2023-03-27)

Additional notes:
On MacOS 12, if you Close Fx (in step3 - instead of Quit), nothing happens when you hit Cmd+Shift+T (in step8.)
Instead, you can still use Cmd+Shift+N to open the tabs closed in step 3. in a new window.

Please let me know if this issue should be addressed here, separately or for some reason is intended behaviour and I'll make the necessary changes.