Where does Win11 save this list of urls ?

GeneralLee01 · Mar 1, 2023

Good morning all,

When abruptly exit Edge and return to Edge later I am offered to restore the tabs that where open before.

Where does Win11 save this list of urls ?

Thanks

TraderGary · Mar 1, 2023

The Edge URL list is apparently saved in my cloud Microsoft Account, because when I make changes on my primary computer's Edge and then open Edge on my second computer, the changes I made are there in Edge on the second computer.

Winuser · Mar 1, 2023

TraderGary said:
The Edge URL list is apparently saved in my cloud Microsoft Account, because when I make changes on my primary computer's Edge and then open Edge on my second computer, the changes I made are there in Edge on the second computer.

I'm not sure that's what they're asking. I think they want to know where Edge saves the info for when it gets abruptly shut down so the session can be restored.

TraderGary · Mar 1, 2023

Winuser said:
I'm not sure that's what they're asking. I think they want to know where Edge saves the info for when it gets abruptly shut down so the session can be restored.

I don't think that how fast Edge is shut down has anything to do with where information is stored.

TraderGary · Mar 1, 2023

It also appears that the same data is stored locally in user's appdata.
c:\users\**username**\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge

das10 · Mar 1, 2023

For local account users at least, they might be saved in a session file beginning with the name Sessions and appended with some time code under:
C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Sessions\Session_.......

Winuser · Mar 1, 2023

TraderGary said:
I don't think that how fast Edge is shut down has anything to do with where information is stored.

You totally misunderstood my post, so I'll give one example. While running Edge you accidently hit the power button and the computer shuts off. The next time you run Edge it will ask if you want to restore the previous session. I think that's what they are asking about.

TraderGary · Mar 1, 2023

Winuser said:
You totally misunderstood my post, so I'll give one example. While running Edge you accidently hit the power button and the computer shuts off. The next time you run Edge it will ask if you want to restore the previous session. I think that's what they are asking about.

I had to smile. Yes, I've had that happen and I didn't think about that possibility. When it reloads after rebooting, I would still think it has to come from storage on one's Microsoft account. And when that's stored, it's apparently also duplicated in local storage.

Winuser · Mar 1, 2023

TraderGary said:
I had to smile. Yes, I've had that happen and I didn't think about that possibility. When it reloads after rebooting, I would still think it has to come from storage on one's Microsoft account.

I get the same message from Firefox, and I don't have it synced to any accounts. It has to be local. I just don't know where.

kgarrett67 · Mar 1, 2023

Could something stored in cache within the browser be a possibility, or better yet, from history?

Just to note, I use Firefox. And also, based on my experience, this action does not happen when I simply close the browser on purpose. It generally happens when the browser crashes.

Update: I stumbled across this article from Mozilla:

Restore previous session - Configure when Firefox shows your most recent tabs and windows | Firefox Help

Firefox can restore windows and tabs that were open the last time you used it. Learn how to use and configure it.

support.mozilla.org

Edwin · Mar 1, 2023

kgarrett67 · Mar 1, 2023

It's interesting that the article I shared from Mozilla details how to turn off this feature, but I could not find anything on how to turn off this feature in Edge. I don't use Edge, but seems there would be a way to turn it off if you wanted to.

kgarrett67 · Mar 1, 2023

Edwin said:
View attachment 53978

I was nosing around a bit. I don't have a folder, Profile 4 showing my the path you provided. What other folder name could it be named?

Edwin · Mar 1, 2023

kgarrett67 said:
What other folder name could it be named?

Default, Profile 2, Profile 3, etc...

Edwin · Mar 1, 2023

If you force a dirty shutdown: Task Manager>Edge>End task, you'll see them change...
(depending on the status of your PC session)

GeneralLee01 said:
Where does Win11 save this list of urls?

So yeah, it's not a list of URL's, it's simply an app specific data file.

Winuser · Mar 2, 2023

TraderGary said:
I would still think it has to come from storage on one's Microsoft account.

I can think of one way to check. Crash Edge on one computer then open it on another computer that is linked to the same account.

Fabler2 · Mar 2, 2023

I still say Edge is a good browser......

Try3 · Mar 2, 2023

GeneralLee01 said:
When abruptly exit Edge and return to Edge later I am offered to restore the tabs that where open before.

Perhaps it's stored within the properties of entries in
C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\History
What I'm speculating is that the history entry for the addresses in properly closed tabs contain a property saying so and that ones that don't contain that closure property setting are offered up for restoration.

But the amount of experimentation required to prove this, or any of the other suggestions, might be considerable.

Denis

das10 · Mar 2, 2023

Assuming Edge closely follows Chrome and that Chrome is now using "Session" and "Tabs" files instead of "Last Session" and "Last Tabs" files:

Broadly speaking, these files store the state of the opened tabs, their back-forward lists and the sites displayed therein. The files can be used by Chrome to restore your previous browsing session when you restart the browser (if that’s how you have it set up) or in the event of a crash.

Chrome Session and Tabs Files (and the puzzle of the pickle)

In this blog post Alex Caithness investigates the file format and contents of Chrome’s “Current Tabs”, “Current Session”, “Last Tabs” and “Last Session” files and discovers that, even with the orig…

digitalinvestigation.wordpress.com

Although they are binary files, for those of us who don't know the abc of Python scripts, we can copy them out of the Sessions folder and then parse and at least filter the http addresses using Stings.exe from MS Sysinternals and some poweshell sort options.