How to Reopen Closed Tabs in Chrome

The fastest way to bring back a tab you just closed in Chrome is the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + T on Windows or Linux, or Cmd + Shift + T on a Mac. Press it once for the last closed tab, and keep pressing to walk back through everything you closed, in reverse order. If the shortcut is not enough, Chrome keeps the same tabs in a right-click menu, a History list, and a startup setting that reopens the whole session for you. Here is every reliable method, simplest first.

The fastest fix: Ctrl + Shift + T#

Chrome remembers the tabs you close during a session and reopens them one at a time. Press Ctrl + Shift + T (Cmd + Shift + T on macOS) and the last tab you closed comes back in the same window, usually scrolled to where you were. According to Google’s Chrome keyboard shortcuts list, this “reopens previously closed tabs in the order they were closed,” so pressing it again brings back the one before that, and so on.

The shortcut has real limits worth knowing. It only works while Chrome is running and drawing on the current session’s memory, and that list is not endless: older closes eventually fall off. It also does nothing in an Incognito window, because Incognito keeps no recently closed list by design. And if you have cleared your browsing history since closing the tab, the entry may be gone. When the shortcut comes up empty, move to one of the menu methods below.

Right-click the tab strip or use the History menu#

If you would rather click than type, two menus hold the same information.

Right-click any empty space on the tab strip, the row where your tabs sit, and choose Reopen closed tab. It does exactly what the keyboard shortcut does, one tab per click, and the menu even lists the Ctrl + Shift + T hint beside it.

For a named list you can pick from, open the menu (the three dots, top right) and point to History. The submenu that opens lists your recently closed pages by title at the top, so you can jump straight to the one you want instead of stepping back through all of them. A window you closed appears there as a group, such as “3 tabs,” and choosing it restores every tab in that window at once. For anything older than the recent list, open the full history page with Ctrl + H and search by title or keyword.

Restore a whole window after a crash#

Closing an entire window, or having Chrome crash, is recoverable too. Ctrl + Shift + T treats a closed window as a single item: one press brings back the whole window with all of its tabs, not just the last one. The History submenu shows the same window group if you prefer to click.

When Chrome does not shut down cleanly, whether from a crash, a forced quit, or a power loss, it usually offers to fix this for you. On the next launch you will see a Restore prompt (Chrome may word it as “Chrome didn’t shut down correctly” with a Restore button, or a “Restore pages?” bubble). Clicking it reopens every tab from the session that was interrupted. If you dismiss that prompt by accident, the keyboard shortcut and the History list are still there as a backup.

Method	Where to do it	What it brings back
Ctrl + Shift + T (Mac: Cmd + Shift + T)	Anywhere in Chrome; repeat to keep going	Last closed tab, then the next in reverse order, or a whole window if that closed last
Reopen closed tab	Right-click the empty tab strip	The single most recently closed tab
Recently closed	Menu (three dots), then History	A named list of recent tabs and closed windows
Restore after crash	Restore prompt on relaunch, or Ctrl + Shift + T	Every tab from the session that was interrupted
Continue where you left off	Settings, then On startup	All of your tabs, automatically, every launch
Recent tabs (mobile)	Menu, then Recent tabs	Recently closed tabs on Android or iPhone

Make Chrome reopen your tabs every time#

To stop losing tabs to accidental closes and restarts, tell Chrome to reopen your last session on its own. Open the menu (three dots), choose Settings, then On startup, and select Continue where you left off. As Google’s help on opening pages at startup puts it, Chrome will “re-open the same pages you were looking at when you quit,” and because “your cookies and data are saved,” sites you were signed into open again. You can reach the same screen directly at chrome://settings/onStartup.

This is the closest thing to insurance against closing the wrong window. One caveat: it restores whatever was open the last time Chrome closed, so if you close a tab on purpose before quitting, it will not come back on the next launch. Note too that clearing your browsing data can wipe the recently closed list along with it, so a session cleanup like the one in how to clear cookies in Chrome removes your safety net until you open new pages.

Reopen closed tabs on Android and iPhone#

Mobile Chrome has no keyboard shortcut, but it keeps a recently closed list. On both Android and iPhone, tap the three-dot menu, then Recent tabs. Under a Recently closed heading you will find the tabs you shut recently; tap one to reopen it. If you are signed in, this screen also shows tabs still open on your other devices, which is a quick way to grab a page you left on your computer.

The mobile list is shorter than the desktop one and holds only your most recent closes, so a tab from days ago will not be there. For those, tap the menu and open History, then search your browsing record for the page. As on desktop, Incognito tabs are never saved to this list.

Symptom	Likely cause	What to do
Ctrl + Shift + T does nothing	You were in Incognito, or history was cleared	Incognito keeps no list; check History if the shortcut is empty
The tab is missing from Recently closed	The list is short and older closes drop off	Open full history with Ctrl + H and search the title
A reopened tab shows a login screen	Session cookies expired or were cleared	Sign in again; the page itself still loads normally

Between the shortcut, the two menus, the crash prompt, and the startup setting, a closed Chrome tab is almost always recoverable, the main exceptions being Incognito windows and tabs lost after you clear your history. Turn on Continue where you left off so the browser rebuilds your session for you, and if Chrome feels sluggish under a heavy pile of tabs, our guide on why Chrome is so slow covers trimming that load. For more day-to-day Chrome tuning, see how to block ads and pop-ups in Chrome.