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Firefox closes pin tabs on quit

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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When I pin a tab, then quit Firefox, the pin is lost forever.

Most other tickets I've seen are about restoring them, but I'm looking for some setting to change so that I can pin tabs.

My history is set to: Remember My setting to delete all cookies and site data on close is unchecked

Any ideas?


Thanks a million!

When I pin a tab, then quit Firefox, the pin is lost forever. Most other tickets I've seen are about restoring them, but I'm looking for some setting to change so that I can pin tabs. My history is set to: Remember My setting to delete all cookies and site data on close is unchecked Any ideas? Thanks a million!

Chosen solution

Also make sure that you do not have set to remove the browsing history in the "Clear history when Firefox closes" settings, since you only mentioned that you do not remove the cookies.


In case you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" or otherwise clear history.

  • do not clear the Browsing History
  • clearing "Site Preferences" clears exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, and software installation and exceptions for passwords and other website specific data
  • clearing "Cookies" will remove all cookies including cookies with an allow exception you may want to keep
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All Replies (4)

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Hi Joshua, Do you have any other Firefox windows open when you quit Firefox? Firefox will save the configuration from the last closed window.

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Just to elaborate on that, pinned tabs are saved in Firefox's session history files. Firefox should restore pinned tabs whether you tell it to restore your entire previous session or not. However, as a test to see whether your session history is getting lost at shutdown, you can turn on the first option on the Settings page, under Startup, to "Open previous windows and tabs". That should automatically restore the windows that were open when you used

Firefox > Quit

and it should populate the

History > Recently Closed Windows

menu to optionally recover up to three windows closed before you quit your previous session.

(I'm a Windows user, so some things may be a bit different on Mac.)

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Chosen Solution

Also make sure that you do not have set to remove the browsing history in the "Clear history when Firefox closes" settings, since you only mentioned that you do not remove the cookies.


In case you use "Clear history when Firefox closes" or otherwise clear history.

  • do not clear the Browsing History
  • clearing "Site Preferences" clears exceptions for cookies, images, pop-up windows, and software installation and exceptions for passwords and other website specific data
  • clearing "Cookies" will remove all cookies including cookies with an allow exception you may want to keep
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Note that on Mac closing Firefox can be more complicated because you can close all open windows, but keep Firefox running with the menu bar visible or minimized in the Doc.

Make sure to use "Quit Firefox" with all windows still open, especially if you want to use "Restore Previous Session". Otherwise check "History -> Restore Previous Session" and "History -> Recently Closed Tabs/Windows".