Recover tabs from saved session that crashes Brave

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Bug/crash already reported and accepted: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/47792

In brief, Brave crashes at some point in attempting to open the windows/tabs from my session. How can I extract a list of windows/tabs from that session?

Ideally this would be in a format where I can edit it in an attempt to bring the session back within what Brave can start and return to where I left off.

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@TorC

My suggestion, is to be prepared by establishing routine backups of Brave Browser user data.

“BB” - Brave Browser

Back up your user data folder > In a BB New Window, go to: ‘brave://version’ and scroll down to ‘Profile Path’. There, notice the ‘Brave-Browser’ folder, that is the parent for the BB users’ profile folders known as ‘Default’, ‘Profile 1’, etc.:

  • Default (the initial, aka default user data folder created during BB installation)
  • Profile 1 (for the 1st additional user profile created [if any])
  • Profile 2 (for the 2nd additional user profile created [if any])
  • etc.

Back up the ‘Brave-Browser’ folder. My backups are .zip compressed, and I name the backups in chronological order; examples:

  • 20250729_BB_data_bkup.zip
  • 20250730_BB_data_bkup.zip

Next, Export your Bookmarks to a “bookmarks.html” file. Export passwords to a CSV file (if using BB’s password manager).

How to Back Up Passwords that are stored by Brave Browser

Scrolling down the webpage at:

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018185951-How-do-I-use-the-built-in-password-manager

A note states:

“Export Passwords - Selecting Download file will export all credentials you’ve saved in your browser as a .CSV file onto your system. Note that anyone who has access to your system will be able to open and view this file, so it is recommended that you delete this file once you’ve used the file for its intended purpose.”

Tips on how to encrypt that .CSV file:

Be sure to safely store a copy of that CSV file on an external drive.

How to back up your Bookmarks as an HTML file

Two ways to get to the Bookmarks Manager.

One way:

  1. Launch Brave and open the Main menu: newmenuicon.png
  2. Select Bookmarks --> Bookmarks Manager
  3. Open the More options menu at the top right
  4. Select Export and choose where you want to store the exported file.

Another way:

  1. In a new Brave Browser window, go to: brave://bookmarks
  2. Locate the “Organize” (vertically-arrayed 3-dot) menu button in the upper-right area of the window; click on that
  3. You should get a pop-up menu, in which you click on the “Export bookmarks” selection and choose where you want to store the exported file.

The exported file name: “bookmarks.html”

Be sure to safely store a copy of that HTML file on an external drive.

Now that you are ready to proceed . . .

Within the backup of the BB user’s profile folder - let’s say, you are still using only the initial user profile and its folder named ‘Default’ ← that includes a sub-folder named ‘Sessions’. And in that ‘Sessions’ folder, there is usually at least 1 saved session and possibly also, at least 1 saved set of tabs:

  • Session file example: “Session_13387619522050810” [it is an SNSS file]
  • Tabs file example: “Tabs_13396004968468207” [it is an SNSS file]

Re Session_13387619522050810 ← the long string of numbers are a date-and-time stamp. On a MacOS computer, the following command (date -r 13387619522050810) will reveal: Thu Apr 6 12:40:10 EST 424238744 ← you may find a similar Linux OS command.

So, IF you are making routine backups of your data, there is a chance that you could copy an old Session_… file and/or an old Tabs_… file into the Sessions folder of your currently-used BB user profile folder, while BB is not running. And then, probably a restart of the computer is in order, followed by running BB, and maybe, “it works.”

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That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t really answer the question of how to extract the list of open tabs from a session. AFAICT, none of the tabs are directly causing any issue, but rather the attempt to open all of them at once is. Hence, it seems likely that I could run for days or more at a time with a working session that cannot be restored, risking several backups in a row that won’t restore, even though none contain any bad tabs.

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