A session manager saves every window you have open - the tabs, their order, their groups - so you can close the browser, switch projects or shut the laptop and come back to the same setup. Latr does it on your own device, with no account, and can bring the whole lot back at a time you choose.
The problem
Three windows, forty tabs, two of them half-filled forms and one long article you are halfway down. None of it is saved anywhere - it is just open. So the browser never gets closed, the laptop never gets restarted, and the update that has been waiting for a week keeps waiting, because closing the window means rebuilding the morning from memory.
Saving
A saved window in Latr is a copy of its tabs and tab groups that you can name, look inside and restore. It has no time and never goes off; it simply waits. Two ways of saving are things you do, and two happen on their own once you switch them on.
Save all tabs in the popup, then Save as one window - or Save this window on the Windows and tabs page. Untick anything you do not want, close the tabs once they are saved if you like, and name it. A named window is kept until you delete it.
Save and close all windows saves every window as itself, closes them, and leaves you one empty window. Each one is set to come back tomorrow morning, with a line for what to do first. Private windows are never saved and never closed.
Off until you turn it on. Every 15, 30 or 60 minutes Latr saves the window you are working in, skips the save when nothing has changed, and keeps the newest 3 to 50 copies - ten by default. Windows you named sit outside that count.
Also off by default. Turn it on and any window with two or more tabs is saved the moment you close it, so the stray click on the wrong X costs nothing. It asks once for access to recently closed windows.
All of this saves current tabs without bookmarking every page, and none of it fills your bookmarks bar. If you would rather sort a pile tab by tab - this one tomorrow, that one Friday, the rest gone - that is saving tabs for later, and it works from the same popup.
Restoring
A saved session comes back as a window, not as forty tabs dropped into the one you happen to be in. Here is how to reopen a saved collection of tabs, and how to get back a window you never saved at all.
Saved windows are in the popup's Saved windows section and on the Windows and tabs page, newest first, with a search across every saved window and every tab inside them. Expand one to see what is in it before you open anything.
Open every tab opens a new window and rebuilds each tab group under its name and colour, folded if it was folded. For a session of hundreds of tabs, tick the few you need today and open just those. The detail of how groups are kept is on saving tab groups.
Open here instead of this window is how you switch between saved browser sessions. Latr saves the current window first, then replaces its tabs with the saved ones, so nothing is lost in either direction. Pinned tabs stay.
Show recently closed lists what the browser itself remembers closing, including from before Latr was watching. Reopening brings a tab back with its history, so the back button still works.
A saved window can be given a time: Remind me… on it, choose tomorrow at 9, and the window comes back then. That is what wrap up the day does for every window at once. The Home page also keeps a Where you left off list, so the session from yesterday is one click away when you sit down.
Many sessions
One window for the client project, one for the course you are taking, one for the trip you are planning - each saved, named and put away until you need it. The Windows and tabs page is where they are managed.
Rename a window, add a note saying what to do next, and file it in a folder. Archive the finished ones: still searchable, never rotated away.
Merge one saved window into another, move single tabs between them, or drop a tab from a saved window without opening it. Deleting offers an undo, and a deleted window waits in the bin for seven days.
A saved window can be shared as one link with a colleague, or with yourself on your other computer - see moving tabs to another computer. Backup files carry reminders and kept pages; saved windows stay on the computer they were saved on.
Open windows, rather than saved ones, have their own tools - moving tabs between windows and merging the strays is on the window manager. To try saving, closing and restoring without installing anything, use the windows playground.
Honestly
Chrome, Edge and Firefox can all reopen your last session on startup, and you should know it is there: in Chrome it is Settings, On start-up, Continue where you left off. It is a good safety net. It is also one session, the last one, and nothing else.
The browser's setting
The last session
Reopens whatever was open when the browser last quit. It cannot keep several sessions side by side, name one, show you what is inside before opening it, bring back a window you closed on Tuesday, or put a session away until Monday. Close your windows one at a time and only the last one is remembered.
A session manager
Every session you keep
Named windows that stay until you delete them, a rolling set of automatic copies, groups kept with their names and colours, a search across all of it, and a time on any of them. Keep the browser setting on as well - the two do not get in each other's way.
Two limits worth knowing. An extension cannot do anything while the browser is shut, and save on close is for windows you close while the browser keeps running - quitting the whole browser is what autosave and wrap up the day are for. And the tabs, the groups, the order and the titles are saved; the contents of a half-typed form are not, because those belong to the page.
Questions
Two ways. For one window, press Save all tabs in the Latr popup and choose Save as one window, then give it a name so it is kept for good. For everything at once, use Save and close all windows from the Open tabs menu (or the Wrap up the day shortcut, once you have given it a key): every window is saved as itself, closed, and set to come back tomorrow morning.
If Latr saved it - by autosave, save on close or by hand - it is on the Windows and tabs page, and Open every tab brings it back as a window. If it was never saved, Show recently closed on the same page lists what the browser itself remembers closing, including from before Latr was installed, and Reopen brings a tab back with its history.
Yes. A window you save keeps its tab groups, their names, their colours and whether each was folded, and Open every tab rebuilds them in a new window. The first time you restore a grouped window the browser asks for the tab-groups permission once; decline it and the tabs still come back, ungrouped. Windows caught by save on close come back without their groups, because the browser does not keep group names for a closed window.
Yes. Save each one as a named window, add a note saying what to do next, and file it in a folder if you like. To switch, choose Open here instead of this window on the one you want: Latr saves the window you are in first, then replaces its tabs with the saved ones. Pinned tabs stay where they are.
Save and close all windows does it in one step, and each window is waiting for you the next morning. If you forget, autosave already has a copy of the window you were working in from the last 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Saved windows live in the extension’s own storage, apart from the browser’s session, so restarting for an update does not touch them.
Yes. Edge installs the same package as Chrome from its own add-ons store, and Firefox has its own build. Saving, autosave, save on close, restoring with groups and recently closed all work in all three. Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and other Chromium browsers install it from the Chrome Web Store.
In your browser’s own extension storage, on your machine - there is no account and nothing is uploaded. Saved windows do not travel over browser sync, because they are larger than a synced item may be, and backup files carry reminders and kept pages rather than saved windows. To move one to another computer running Latr in Chrome or Edge, copy its share link and open it there: it can be added back as a saved window, up to 50 tabs per link, without its tab groups.
Free, no account, and nothing leaves your device. About ten seconds to install, and one keystroke to use.
Also on Brave, Vivaldi, Arc and Opera - straight from the Chrome Web Store listing.
