How to save all open tabs in Chrome

You have 30 tabs open, it’s late, and you need to close the window without losing an afternoon of research. Chrome can handle this on its own, up to a point. Here is every way to do it, starting with the ones that need no extension.

1. Bookmark all tabs at once

Chrome has had this for years and most people have never seen it.

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+D (Cmd+Shift+D on a Mac).
2. Chrome asks for a folder name and saves every tab in the window as a bookmark.
3. To bring them back, right-click the folder in the bookmarks bar and choose Open all.

This works, and it’s free. The catch is that bookmarks are a snapshot with no memory of the window itself. Pinned tabs, tab order across multiple windows, and tab groups don’t survive the round trip. You also end up with a bookmarks bar full of folders named “New folder (14)“.

2. Turn on “Continue where you left off”

If your goal is just to survive closing the browser:

1. Open chrome://settings/onStartup.
2. Select Continue where you left off.

Chrome will reopen your last set of tabs every time it starts. This is the setting most people actually want, and it costs nothing. Its limit: it only remembers the most recent state. It cannot bring back the window from Tuesday, and if Chrome opens once with the wrong tabs, that becomes the new “where you left off”.

3. Use tab groups

Select multiple tabs (Ctrl+click), right-click, and add them to a group. Chrome can save and sync groups across devices. Groups are good for organizing what stays open, less good for archiving what you want to close. A saved group also lives in your tab strip, which is exactly the place you were trying to clean up.

4. Use a session manager

An extension can do what the built-ins can’t: treat the whole window as one savable, restorable thing.

This is what our extension, UtilEngine, does. Press Alt+Z, type “save”, and the window becomes a named session: every tab, in order, restorable on any machine you’re signed into. It also snapshots all your windows every hour on its own, so the window you forgot to save is recoverable too. Sessions sync across Chrome, Brave, and Edge.

To be clear about the trade: UtilEngine is a paid extension ($49 once, no subscription), and the session manager is one of 50+ commands in a launcher. If all you need is “reopen my tabs tomorrow”, the free built-ins above will do it. If your tabs are work you can’t afford to lose, or you’re saving and restoring windows every day, that’s the job it was built for.

Which one should you use?

• Closing the browser overnight: Continue where you left off.
• Archiving a finished project’s tabs: Bookmark all tabs.
• Keeping active projects organized: Tab groups.
• Tabs you’d be upset to lose, or windows you reopen across machines: a session manager.