How to restore session in Microsoft Edge

Question

I am using Windows 10 operating system, and yesterday I have installed the latest update version 1511. Everything is working ok, except I lost all open tabs in Microsoft Edge br

Answer 1

For me this article was helpful:
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/cybercrime/2015/09/regaining-control-over-edge/
I have set a registry key (like described in the above link):

To recover Edge with the “Previous pages” or better put, to have it follow the behavior specified under Settings again, you have to set that value to 0, as below:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\MicrosoftEdge\Recovery] 
"AutoRecover"=dword:00000000

Answer 2

To be precise and keep it simple, although Gleb put out pretty good instructions, there's an easier way to do it.

If you do have the files in the folder C:\Users\currentuser\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Recovery\Active , you don't need to copy delete or anything else with that.

Just open Edge if not yet (you already did, when you noticed the session is gone, so that's enough for you...), open one new tab and close edge down. Check in the folder for the file named RecoveryStore.{.... and you will notice there are two files. One should have the new date (aka the date when you opened the browser to get failed session) and the other will be older, and most likely dated same as all of the .dat files inside.

Copy the name of the NEWER RecoveryStore.{ file, delete the file, and paste the name to the older RecoveryStore.{ file, so that your old one replaces the new one but keeps new name. Just start Edge and it should load all your tabs and windows back up.

When there are files in Active folder, and no session is recovered, it means that it hasn't deleted session just lost the RecoveryStore pointer name, so it created a new one...

Answer 3

IDEA: Before you try any of this, and if you happen to have opened a new browser session, before you close it, go to history and see if you can find the previous pages that you lost. If you have more than 10 pages and if they are buried in the history of your browser, then it is better to try any of the methods described above.

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This is what I did. My browser session crashed. I was forced to close the session via the Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC). Then:

1. I went to the ACTIVE folder and I made a copy of this folder into another location, say Documents.
2. Now I opened EDGE and I opened as many tabs as files in your ACTIVE folder (minus 1 --> don't count the recovery file)
3. Now do not close edge by clicking at the x in the window. Instead, close it via Task Manager
4. Now, the tedious part is to copy the file name of this NEW ACTIVE folder into the OLD ACTIVE folder. Do this file per file.
5. You also need to copy the recovery...xyz.dat file from the NEW folder into the OLD folder

Make sure the fresh renamed files from the OLD ACTIVE folder are moved to the ACTIVE folder. Start EDGE and it should work.

Tested on Windows 10 x64.

REMARK: I had [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\MicrosoftEdge\Recovery] "AutoRecover"=dword:00000000 setup and settings>> load previous page in the EDGE browser and that did not have any effect.

REMARK: The problem I was having while recovering my files is that every time I close EDGE by hitting the x is that it was erasing all the files in my ACTIVE folder. By closing EDGE by force, I was able to apply this trick. -Kf

Answer 4

1. Copy all files from C:\Users\currentuser\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Recovery\Active to other folder
2. Delete all files from C:\Users\currentuser\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Recovery\Active
3. Open Edge
4. Press Ctrl+T e.g. 5 times, open 5 tabs
5. Close Edge
6. In folder C:\Users\currentuser\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Recovery\Active you can see new 5 files, e.g. {0BBFA40A-D703-11E5-9C10-C86000138E00}.dat...{0BBFA406-D703-11E5-9C10-C86000138E00}.dat and 1 file RecoveryStore.{0BBFA404-D703-11E5-9C10-C86000138E00}.dat
7. Replace this 5 files by first 5 files from folder par.1 retaining the new name, importantly! e.g. {0BBFA40A-D703-11E5-9C10-C86000138E00}.dat...{0BBFA406-D703-11E5-9C10-C86000138E00}.dat
8. Open Edge

9. Enjoy;)

10. Repeat par.2-9 for next 5 files...

Answer 5

In the settings menu, under "Open with" there is an option to select "Previous pages" when you open Edge. Other than that, I'm not sure.

Answer 6

Just want to extend/enhance Gleb Derzkij's answer a bit, just in case it's a lot of tabs (in my case 32).

For step 4, it obviously also works, if you open the respective amount of tabs - 32 for me.

Just to clarify step 7: you have to rename each of the old, backupped files to one of the newly created ones. For that, you can use the cmd commands dir and rename.

7a) In the open %localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Recovery\Active explorer window hit CTRL+L or F4 to go to the folder line

7b) enter cmd and hit ENTER to open a cmd in this directory

7c) enter dir /b to print out all file names in this directory and copy those

7d) repeat the same thing (7a-7c) for your backupped folder

7e) open a table calculation program (e.g. Excel) and paste first the "new tabs output" in Column A and then the "backup folder output" in B

7f) you now have a list of 32 (or your amount of) rows containing the generated, new and the backupped, old tab files in colums A and B

7g) copy the code ="rename "&A1&" "&B1 in cell C1

7h) copy C1 to the cells from C2 to C32 (or your amount). Excel automatically changes the references.

7i) you have all rename commands for all files in your backup folder. Just copy the whole column C and paste it in the backup folder cmd. All files are renamed properly.

7j) (task-)kill your Edge and drag/drop your backup back to the appdata folder. Replace all.

continue with step 8) ;-)

(you don't need 10 here)

Hope that helps for excessive tab users like me. Unfortunately, That Marc's answer didn't work for me.

Sorry for referencing between comments and answers, but you can read it far better here.