Description of the issue: Lost all tabs after crash How can this issue be reproduced?
Seems ongoing
Expected result: Useful information
Brave Version( check About Brave): 1.83.112
Additional Information: MacOS Sequoia 15.6.1
Had a bizarre crash when Brave got hung trying to download a .pdf and on restart all tabs were gone. Forum search returned many closed threads with people experiencing similar issues and being told to ‘back up tabs’ but the only method being some kind of script. My question is about where open tab info is stored. There doesn’t seem to be a Library>Application Support folder for Brave anymore or I can’t find one. I have a recent Time Machine back up and am wondering if restoring the older BU version of Brave might restore all my many lost tabs? Thanks in advance!
Hadn’t heard of it but various combos of those do nothing except for command+shift+t which activates the ‘Reopen Closed Tab’ from Brave’s ‘File’ menu. Your answer wasn’t the info I’m looking for but thanks for trying to be helpful.
No worries! I mainly want to know if the caches, tabs, etc. are stored externally (and where, if so) or are now inside the app package, as it is referred to with MacOS. Will see if I get more of a response after the weekend is over.
@Jzip,
When the browser crashes and restarts fresh, you should be shown a prompt to Restore your previously opened tabs. It’s likely too late for that at this point in time,but be on the lookout for that should it occur again.
Additionally, when you open the browser, if you go to Menu --> History, if you haven’t overwritten yet, you should see an entry that has all the tabs of your prior session in it. It would look like these here:
Lastly, the Application support folder is still there. You’ll find it in
Macintosh HD/Users/[Your user name]/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser
The easiest way to get here though is to open a finder window, then in the ribbon at the top of the screen, click Go, then hold the Option key on your keyboard – this will display the Library directory – click it and you should be able to get to Application Support easily from there:
Here, you can find your History file stored in the Default profile folder. However, it is not an a straightforward task to read this data. First, the file requires an SQLite reader to view. I use DB Browser for SQLite as it is both free and reputable. Second, find the links to the specific tabs you had open, you will have to to open that file in the SQLite viewer, view the urls table, then scroll down the list of this table until you find the specific section/tabs you’re looking for. It looks like the site that were visited more recently appear at the bottom rows of the table, so that helps a little bit.
Thank you for the detailed and helpful reply. I did get the ‘Restore’ prompt, which I’m familiar with, and after clicking it I got zero tabs back, hence my post. The hidden Library trick fooled me as this is my first issue where I wanted to poke around in mine since I upgraded my MBA from an acient 2012 model to an M3 model last year. My much later OS has gone to greater lengths to hide the Library, so this tip is very useful.
My next question is about restoring my app support folder and previous app from my Time Machine back up. Would this bring back the previous state with all the tabs, tab groups, etc.? Thank you again for the help!
Hmmm… there doesn’t seem to be any way to actually get the Library again in the Time Machine view. Would probably have to restore the whole User folder but am not sure if that actually includes the Library. Might be worth a shot as I lost a buttload of tabs… sigh.
Yeah so what I would try is first making a safe copy of the Default folder you have now (~/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/Default) in case this doesn’t work or something goes wrong.
Once you’ve saved it somewhere safe, go ahead and fully quit the browser (this step is important as doing this while the browser is running can cause issues), then restore that folder from a date in which you last had those tabs. Launch Brave and check to see if the tabs are present/open when it launches. If they’re not, check Menu --> History again and see if it shows the tabs here, similar to the first screen shot I shared.
Yes, thanks! Was about to do another Time Machine BU but will also do a direct copy as you said. Going to go on some Apple sites and check out some topics. There must be a Terminal command that would make the User/Library permanently visible in the Finder. Anyway, I’ll post the results of the experiment.
So, just for those interested, you don’t need a Terminal hack. Go to your Home folder in the Finder and the View>Show View Options [Command-J] and check the Show Library box.
Also to keep the Library folder handy, you can add it to your Finder Sidebar.
When you are in any particular Folder OR
have any particular Folder SELECTED
within Finder you can go to: File > Add to Sidebar
or use it’s shortcut: [control ⌤] + [command ⌘] + [T]
(I know this is slightly off the main topic, but just from your last two most recent posts, I thought it might be helpful )
Wow! I dood it! Super weird process that I don’t want to ever have to do again. Going to bookmark a bunch of group tabs and other essentials now. Long convoluted process ended up needing a cool utility app named ‘Funter’ which makes all invisible files/folders visible, even in my Time Machine BU’s. Couldn’t figure out how to copy the Default folder into my User/Library folder as there are lots of restrictions/permissions stuff that I couldn’t unwind. Funter made my TM BU User Library visible and I was able to restore just my Application Support folder instead of my whole User folder (which was preferable IMO) and then I kept both copies when prompted. Since the BU was already in the Library folder, I was finally able to replace the newer Brave Default with the old BU one and when I launched I got the ‘Restore’ prompt then… Yay!
Thanks. I did know about this just not the newer hidden control for the User Library. My preference is to not have to be rooting around and changing stuff in my Libraries at all
)