Google Chrome: Force Restore Previous Session from Command Line

Contributed by shamanstears September 4, 2008  
Tagged: Google

Did you accidentally close your browser and it wasn’t set to restore the pages that were open last? Instead of being frustrated, simply use a command line switch for Chrome and restore the previous session. I do this enough that I went ahead and made a Restore Session shortcut on my desktop that sits next to my regular Google Chrome shortcut.

To do this from a command prompt, use one of the following:

Vista:

C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --restore-last-session

XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --restore-last-session

where username is the username whose profile contains the Google Chrome installation.

To create a shortcut:

1. Copy the shortcut for Google Chrome and paste it on the desktop.

2. Rename the shortcut to Restore Last Session.

3. Right-click the new icon and select Properties.

4. In the Target textbox, go to the end of the path and after chrome.exe, insert a space and input the following:
--restore-last-session

5. Click OK.

Now you have a way to restore the last session, regardless of the way you have configured Google Chrome to startup.