Browsers Not Opening Previous Tabs On Start

As a test, deselect ”Close windows when quitting an app.” and see what happens.

 > System Preferences > General

For details:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204005

danih wrote:

Thank you for the reply. I have that de-selected, but it still does not help. I saw there is a button combination you can use to bring the tabs back in Safari but it’s cumbersome. Doesn’t work with Firefox or Chrome but I found a way to get those tabs back in FireFox from the menu. It’s just weird because they’re not opening in private browsing.

Private Browsing you would not expect it to be saved. This would defeat the purpose of "private" browsing.

Normal operations—Don't quit the Application, leave it open, this should not be an issue...

—Have the all apps relaunch on startup selected as an option

—Simply close the lid and let it sleep, do not shut down unless there is some compelling reason

I don't use Safari, but Firefox has an option to "Restore" the last session if the tabs/windows don't open automatically. I don't use Firefox that much to know what settings it has.

I use Vivaldi which is based on Chromium which is the same base used by the Google Chrome browser. Vivaldi definitely has a setting to "Startup with Last Session" as well as several other options. Vivaldi has the most customization options of any browser out there so you can tweak the browser to just about any behavior you want. I especially love Vivaldi's tab management options.

Sometimes a browser may just not close down properly and will be unable to restore its previous session no matter how the browser is configured.