How to Reopen a Browser Tab You Closed?

I was helping somebody recently and they didn't know how to get out of a small problematic situation. I took this for granted and assumed everybody knew how to do this, but he didn't know and was grateful when I showed him.

He said it was the best tip he's gotten all month, so I thought I pass it on to you as well.Sometimes you press the little X on a browser tab too fast and you close your browser tab. But you did it accidentally, and now you want it back. Maybe it was an accident, but you NEED it back, that long form you have been filling out is there, fifteen minutes of typing gone!

Sometimes you press the little close button (x) on a browser tab too fast and you close your browser tab. But you did it accidentally, and now you want it back. Maybe it was an accident, but you NEED it back, that long form you have been filling out is there, fifteen minutes of typing gone!

Not so fast, if this happens to you again, pause for a second, then remember that this keyboard combination will re-open the last tab you closed. If you press the combination several times, each time you do it, the next last-closed tab will re-open up.

It's like undo for closing a tab. Works on all major browsers on your desktop.

browser photo

This is very useful every once in a while, or if you are like me, you are close-tab-happy with the "command + W" keyboard shortcut to make the current tab close.

The shortcut to re-open the tab is shift+command+t on OSX or shift+control+t on Windows. Just press those keys in a combination sequence and your tab should re-open. In some cases, it will even have a partially filled out form, like a blog post or a survey.

This works on all major browsers, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Opera. If you are on a mobile device, when you close a tab, the browser usually prompts you to "undo" briefly at the bottom of the screen.

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