Stop accidentally killing ALL Chrome browsers

Stop accidentally killing ALL Chrome browsers | DaveTavres.comAs a keyboard nut, and an avid Google Chrome user, *THE* most frustrating and annoying thig Google has ever done is – the “Close all Chrome Browsers” keyboard shortcut – CTRL+SHIFT+Q – which you might think this could be useful – but it is NOT!

Over the years, I’ve accidentally killed every open tab and browser HUNDREDS of times. As it turns out, Google DID create a fantastic keyboard shortcut that would restore your recently closed tabs (one-by-one, or ALL of them if you accidentally hit the CTRL+SHIFT+Q shortcut), but hitting CTRL+SHIFT+T. It’s a VERY useful shortcut which I use dozens of times a day.

However. As a web developer, I also use one of Chromes other fantastic tools – “Incognito”. Incognito allows you to open a new browser window – CTRL+SHIFT+N – that has no cookies or cache, so you can test sites that you’re working on. Or, if you just need to check a different email account, or want to double check the Amazon Prime price as a Prime Member, or as a regular visitor. Then when you’re done with your test, close the Incognito browser, and the cookies, cache, memory for that user session is erased.

Well… the magic ‘Restore Tabs’ shortcut is great – unless you’re me, who uses InCognito A LOT. And sure enough, CTRL+SHIFT+T will NOT restore Incognito tabs. Uggh!

A FIX!

Yes… I found a fix while tweaking a Google extension.

  1. Go to chrome://extensions (or ALT+F, Settings, Extensions)
  2. Scroll to the bottom of your extensions, and click the “Keyboard shortcuts” link. This will open a settings box to control your installed Chrome extensions.
  3. Find one of the extension that doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut set, click in that field, and hit CTRL+SHIFT+Q.

Tada! Now when you accidentally hit that stupid keyboard shortcut – you won’t kill all your (Incognito) work. You’ll just activate one of your plugins.

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