When you close Microsoft Edge, you naturally assume that all your active tabs are permanently closed with it. However, many users find that the next time they launch the browser, Edge automatically resurrects and loads every single tab they were looking at during their previous session. While this feature is designed to help you quickly resume your work, it is a massive privacy risk if you share a family computer or if you are presenting your screen during a business meeting.
Furthermore, if you had 40 heavy tabs open when you closed the browser, forcing Edge to automatically reload all 40 tabs the moment you launch the app will severely bottleneck your computer’s CPU and memory, causing the browser to freeze on startup.
You can configure Microsoft Edge to permanently forget your previous session, ensuring that every time you launch the browser, you are presented with a clean, blank slate.
How to Stop Edge from Restoring Previous Tabs
You must change the browser’s startup behavior in the general settings.
- Open the Microsoft Edge browser.
- Click the three horizontal dots in the top-right corner.
- Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
- In the left-hand navigation sidebar, click on Start, home, and new tabs.
- Look under the very first section labeled “When Microsoft Edge starts.”
- You will see three radio buttons. By default, it is likely set to “Open tabs from the previous session.”
- Change this selection to Open the New Tab page (or Open these pages if you want a specific homepage like Google).
Microsoft Edge will immediately respect this new rule. The next time you close the browser, all your tabs will be permanently destroyed. When you open it again, you will be greeted by a single, clean New Tab page.