Make pinned tabs persist between windows (by default)

[nwebb]

• If a user bookmarks a page/site they are showing clear intent to keep a permanent link
• If a user pins a page they are clearly indicating that they are not yet finished with the page

Currently, the slightest mistake in FF (e.g. closing windows in the wrong order) causes the user to lose all their pinned sites. If the user notices in time they can recover these lost pins, but why should they have to, and why would a browser ever remove sites when the user is clearly indicating that they are not yet done with them? This seems extremely counter-intuitive. 

Some browsers, like Safari, now ensure that your pinned tabs appear at the top of every new window. This means that as a user you can say 'I'd like to read this later' and ensure the page(s) are (i) easily available (ii) prominently visible to serve as a reminder (iii) can be saved semi-permanently without cluttering up your bookmarks (iv) can be easily added and removed as necessary without the need to hunt through saved bookarmaks.

And if a user doesn't want this behaviour? An option to override it could be provided in which FF automatically delete the pins when it opens a new window. There could be a second option where subsequent windows simply hide pins (i.e. they only ever appear in the primary window).

This feels like it gives bookmarks and pinned pages much more defined roles.

Note: I'm still struggling to think why a user would want to pin a page if they didn't want it to persist until they unpinned it, and why they would not want a pinned page to carry over into a new browser window. 

[theking2]

Pinned tabs are removed when closing the browser (just like the tabs). Favourites or bookmarks or whatever they called today stay available.

Now for the New Idea: Make pinned tabs permanent, just like favourites.

Pin a tab, close firefox, reopen firefox and presto, the pinned tabs are there again (luckily, I'm feeling all woozy now)

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[jscher2000]

Hi, pinned tabs are saved in the session history file along with other open tabs and recently closed tabs and windows.

If you are losing your pinned tabs when you close and reopen Firefox, one possible reason is setting Firefox to erase your history when you close it, since session history is treated as part of history. Besides Firefox's settings, there are some add-ons and external cleaning software that may clear history and/or session history.

Another issue that sometimes arises is when users close the window that contains the pinned tabs, there is another window. In that case, it is best to restore the closed window using Ctrl+Shift+N (or on Mac, it's Command+Shift+N). To avoid losing the window you need to keep, you can Exit/Quit Firefox using the menu rather than closing individual windows.

[theking2]

Yes. And I'd very much like pinned tabs to be treated as favorites. Even synced with my account. Even when I setup my pc new I very much like these back.

And btw Firefox cache sits on a ramdisk. So sessions are always new and fresh on my system

[ak2766]

When I have multiple Firefox windows open and I accidentally close the one with pinned tabs, they are gone for good and the only option is to re-pin the tabs after opening them again.  It's such a pita as most times I pin tabs that I want to revisit later and would not have memorized them.

It would be nice for Firefox to confirm the close window action if there are more windows opens.  If the window with pinned tabs is the only one open, then no conformation required as the browser remembers what was open on the last window closed.

[Edwin]

when i clip a tab in tab bar,it doesn't show in the new window.I have to return the old window what has pinned tab.

[moz_samri]

i agree

[Anonymous]

I feel like there are differnet "ideas" of what a pinned tab should be and how it should (is expected to) behave.

I personally always though of them as "just" harder to accidentally close tabs and nothing "special"  (that needs to be restored, saved or synced)  - Thats what bookmarks were for.

But if pinns will get some special treatment, i hope their behaviour can still be configured, at least via about:config.

[ocote42]

Keep pinned tabs pinned

FF is my default browser but there's a little thing that I cannot bear : when you have pinned tabs and then you have opened 2 or more windows and unfortunately you close them in the wrong order, then you've lost all your pinned tabs.

I can't understand why someone found it handful to build such a thing.

Why would someone pin several tabs if it's not to have them preloaded each time he starts FF, in whatever order he may have closed his different windows ?

[IronComet]

I look at the current pinned tabs as having a design bug.

I had a bunch of tabs pinned in a normal window and opened a separate private browser window. Then to save space I closed the normal browser and continued on with the private browser session.

When I went to reopen the normal browser all the tabs were gone. I would expect the browser to treat both of these as their own browser sessions; possibly sandboxed from each other.

[adrive]

It would be nice if Firefox would not forget all  the pinned tabs once you open 2+ Windows with different pinned tabs, or what ever is the cause of this behaviour. Pls keep pinned tabs until they are removed manually and merge them once windows are closed.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Jon]

Similar idea on desired pinned tabs behavior: Make pinned tabs persist between windows (by default) 

[manfy30]

If you open multi windows, and then you close the window with pinned tab in it, you will lose your pinned tabs

I suggest there will be a main window, and you can add pinned tabs just to the main window then if you close windows in any order pinned tabs remains persistance

[Maik]

Wholly agree.
Either pinned tabs should be on all windows, or if you close a window with pinned tabs, those tabs should move to another open window.

"Losing" pinned tabs, when closing windows in the wrong order is really stupid.