Importing Tabs and Settings from Chrome

We know the longer you’ve used a browser, the more it feels like home. You’ve set up your browser behavior to your liking and tweaked its various settings to fit your needs. It has all your user data, which helps you fill forms, do your work online, and login to your accounts. And, we know that when you want to try out a new browser, not having access to these features is a big problem. Nobody wants to set up the browser with their data and settings all over again.  

One of the major asks for our users coming over from Google Chrome has always been to have the ability to import more – and to have a simple way in the new Microsoft Edge that allows you to continue right where you left off in Google Chrome browser. 

Now, we have simplified the process of making your new browser feel like it is truly yours. The new Microsoft Edge allows the import of user data from Google Chrome, so that it’s easier than ever to get started.  

To import your data from Google Chrome, you need to go to: Settings > Profiles > Import browser data  

You can also use this URL to quickly navigate to the import dialog: edge://settings/importData 

In this dialog, select Google Chrome as the source browser and then select the user profile that you want to import from. 

Import your browser settings from Google Chrome 

To ensure that the new Microsoft Edge is immediately familiar to you, and works just how you expect your browsers to, we’ve added the ability to import the browser settings from Google Chrome. 

We’ve ensured that all the settings which are used most often, help with browser customization, are important for accessibility, or are just critical for the browser to work, are migrated. On the other hand, we do not import settings which depend on online services, or where there is significant difference between the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge implementations. These settings are left to the new Microsoft Edge defaults. 

To see the list of settings that we import from Google Chrome, [see here]. 

Import your Open and Pinned tabs from Google Chrome 

Do you self-identify as a “Tab hoarder”? (Confession: I do!) 

For those of us with scores (and more!) of open tabs, one of the major issues with trying out other browsers has always been that we cannot import our open tabs like we can import favorites, passwords and so on.

Now, you can import your pinned and open tabs from Google Chrome, so that you can continue browsing your collection of important open tabs! 

To import your pinned and open tabs from Google Chrome, in the edge://settings/importData view, select Open tabs > Import. This will start the import process, and the imported tabs will be appended to the already open tabs in your active browser window. 

Note that on Windows devices, you need to have Google Chrome closed to be able to import the browser tabs. Otherwise the import process isn’t able to read the tab recovery data from Google Chrome. On macOS, you can import open tabs from Google Chrome even if they are open. 

Finally, do keep in mind that while you can import hundreds of tabs into the new Microsoft Edge - like all other Chromium based browsers, it can only show 70 of them.  

These features will be making their way into the Dev and Beta channels in the coming weeks. If you’re on our Canary channel, you should be able to try them out right now! 

As always, do let us know if you like these features, or if you have some feedback or issues that you would like to share with us. Send your feedback by using the Smiley button (on the top right of the browser).