If you have had the Vivaldi browser crash on you, and lose all of your tabs, here’s how to get most, if not all, of your tabs back! This solution should also work with other browsers, we just happen to be writing about Vivaldi here.
In order to not bury the lede, the solution involves your Time Machine backup (or, we suppose, other backup), and we are going to give you exact, step-by-step instructions. But before we give you those instructions, take a moment to acquaint yourself with the Vivaldi menu option under ‘File’ that says ‘Save All Tabs as Session’. If you aren’t already taking advantage of this option, start doing so now.
The Problem: Vivaldi Crashed and Lost All of Your Tabs
Even if you are using saved tab sessions, sometimes Vivaldi will crash and even though you have saved your tabs as a session, they disappear. Similarly, even though clicking on the little trash can icon in the far upper-right corner of Vivaldi should, in theory, present you with a list of tabs which have recently been closed, there is nothing there – somebody done already took out that trash!
The Solution: Strategic Deleting and Restoring of Certain Folders and Files
As we mentioned, we are going to give you step-by-step instructions for getting at least most of your tabs back using Time Machine, however these directions should work for many other browsers, and many other backup systems, you’ll just need to determine where the analogous folders (directories) and files are.
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Step 1: Find the Vivaldi Folder
The first thing that you need to do is open Finder, and find your Library folder. This folder is under your user folder (directory) and will likely be greyed out, but you can still open it.
Library Folder is Greyed Out But Still Accessible
In the Library folder find the ‘Application Support’ folder, and within the Application Support folder find the Vivaldi folder.
Contents of the Vivaldi Folder
Step 2: Rename the Vivaldi Folder
Rename the Vivaldi folder (the entire thing) to something else – anything else. We used “vivaldi-old”.
Step 3: Move the Old Vivaldi Folder to the Trash
Now move the old, renamed Vivaldi folder to the trash. Don’t empty your trash! Just move it to the trash.
Step 4: Restore the Vivaldi Folder from Time Machine
Now go into Time Machine, find the backup that is most close in time to just before you lost your tabs, and find the Vivaldi folder (i.e. /Application Support/Vivaldi). Restore the Vivaldi folder.
Step 5: Open Vivaldi
Now open Vivaldi and breathe a huge sigh of relief at having all of your tabs back!
Don’t forget to start saving your tab sessions!
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