Forum Discussion
MicrosoftImprovements to history in Microsoft Edge
Today, we’re excited to share two significant updates to history in Microsoft Edge. We know you have all been eagerly awaiting history sync, and we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve started rolling out support for syncing your browsing history and open tabs across devices. We’re also excited to reveal some improvements we’re making to the way you access your history. We introduced you to a new way of using favorites in Microsoft Edge a few weeks ago, and we’re bringing many of the same enhancements to history as well.
As with favorites, the new history experience is designed to help you quickly get back to the sites you’ve visited previously, including tabs you’ve recently closed or have open on other devices. And many of these changes are based directly on the feedback you’ve shared with us.
How often do you find the page you want in your history on the first try? Most of the time, there’s some trial and error as you switch back and forth between your history and the various pages to find the right one. The new history experience is designed to simplify this process by opening on top of the current webpage. From here, you can simply click through your history and watch as the page loads in the background. When you find the page you want, simply click anywhere outside of the history menu to close it. Of course, just like favorites, you can also pin history open for a more permanent view as well.
In addition to your browsing history, you’ll also find pivots for your recently closed tabs and tabs you have open on other devices. History will even remember which pivot you were on last for faster access next time.
We’ve updated recently closed to remember the last 25 tabs and windows from any past session rather than just the previous one, giving you plenty of time to return later. And you can now expand a recently closed window to see all the tabs you had open inside.
Support for syncing your browsing history and open tabs is a top-requested feature in Microsoft Edge. This feature is still under development and will be made available to everyone in the future, but users who are already part of the rollout will see a third pivot called Tabs from other devices. Here you’ll find all the tabs you have open in Microsoft Edge on other devices, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Note: Both devices need to have history and tab sync enabled for them to show up.
In response to your feedback, you can now add history to your toolbar right next to favorites and Collections for one-click access. Just open the history menu, click on the history menu button (), and select Show history button in toolbar. You can also customize your toolbar on the Appearance page in Settings.
The new history menu also includes all your favorite features from the history page, and you can clear your browsing history via the history menu. If you’d prefer a more immersive view of your history, simply select Manage history in the history menu or type edge://history in your address bar.
We’d love to hear what you think of the new history experience, so please leave us a comment below or let us know via the feedback tool in Microsoft Edge! These changes are currently available for users in the Canary and Dev channels, although sync may not be enabled in all regions yet. We’re also working on updates to the user experience for downloads and other content types. Stay tuned for more details!
— William Devereux, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Edge
88 Replies
This new "history" in edge is a step backwards. The only reason I'm opening history tab is to find something, and you just made it harder. Previously ctrl+h used to focus on search bar which allowed to type whatever I needed, now I need to specifically click on search icon.
Since old history tab wasn't removed, just hidden few clicks further, could you please give setting for cltr+h to open this old view. I'm sorry, but I absolutely see no added value in this new feature, and at least a few drawbacks (except for mentioned searching another issue is that is just too small.
After download settings changes some time ago this is another change that is adding new features by disrupting existing workflows, and if this is the course you plan on taking with edge I think I'll switch back to chrome.- Spoiler
Desf_ wrote:This new "history" in edge is a step backwards. The only reason I'm opening history tab is to find something, and you just made it harder. Previously ctrl+h used to focus on search bar which allowed to type whatever I needed, now I need to specifically click on search icon.
Since old history tab wasn't removed, just hidden few clicks further, could you please give setting for cltr+h to open this old view. I'm sorry, but I absolutely see no added value in this new feature, and at least a few drawbacks (except for mentioned searching another issue is that is just too small.
After download settings changes some time ago this is another change that is adding new features by disrupting existing workflows, and if this is the course you plan on taking with edge I think I'll switch back to chrome.Didn't you read 3 comments above ? that feature you are talking about is already implemented.
just scroll up a bit or use this link to take you to the comment directly:
Is there a way to turn this off?
Great feature and I think it'll be a success, except for one disruptive omission:
Can the search text box be focused when we press CTRL+H, so we can start typing immediately?
This is muscle memory from every browser: CTRL+H -> start typing. I'm a little worried why some have asked this question, but it's not gotten an official response. For me personally, I know exactly what I'm looking for, but the address bar history is cluttered with way too many other results.
In all other browsers / Chromium Edge Prior This Update:
- Press CTRL+H
- Start typing
- Click the result
Newest Chromium Edge:
- Press CTRL+H
- Click the search icon
- Start typing
- Click the result
If not, could the Edge feedback team push to include a "fallback" to the previous history UI, i.e,. edge://history with CTRL+H, which did focus the search text box?
- William DevereuxI have good news for you! As of this morning's Canary update, you can now start typing to immediately search without clicking on the search icon. 🙂
Thank you so much! That's great to hear and I'll be super excited once 90 hits stable in a few weeks. Definitely a positive improvement for those with decades of muscle memory on how History usually works.
I do sympathize with users who like the original edge://history tab (which has great features like natural date filtering like "Yesterday" and "Last Week"). If there's an easy way to open that tab, I can see where they're coming from.
I also hope the redraw / performance can be improved. It's currently a not-particularly smooth five-step animation (on an i7-1065G7 / 20H2 / 88.0.705.81), with optional steps for users who do not pin the History tab:
- (optional) Insert the History icon in the toolbar menu.
- Load an empty white floating box.
- (optional) Move the empty white floating box to the left with the icon.
- Load the top chrome with search and the three-button menu.
- Load the dark scroll bar.
- Load the history items (biggest delay here).
For #5, perhaps this data (at least the recent items) could be cached? Unfortunately, the same delay occurs with edge://history as a tab, but it feels less bloated because it's a tab (which we associate with websites that often load progressively) versus an in-tab browser menu that we expect to populate all items immediately.
The most noticeable seems to be #5, but I'm also confused why #3 and #4 didn't load with #2 automatically. Shouldn't they load instantly? Likewise, removing a history item via the floating "X" has another 300ms to 800ms delay (also occurs in edge://history).
A labeled diagram (post-load, it's harder to annotate a video):
William Devereux Thanks for the work (but I hate it).
The page for shortcuts still lists the ctrl + h as opening the tab, I found no way of defining shortcuts on Edge's options and trying ctrl + shift + h and several other ways did not get me the tab.
So the shortcut for the tab was just deleted?
I have seen several comments about the same thing; people wanting to use the tab.
So I hope that as soon as possible a shortcut, or option to choose which one you want with the ctrl + h, for the tab is made.
I loathed the win10 old edge because it was all useless tabs with no actual control or real pages to set and manage things. Put those things as Microsoft wish on the new one, but no reason to delete the features people actually like and force down the replacement instead of giving people options to which one they would like to use.I know this probably isn't what you will have want to hear after clearly putting a lot of effort into this but can you please add an option to disable this Internet Explorer style history for those of us who prefer a proper Chromium style History tab. I have been using Chromium Edge for around 18 months now so by no means a hater but I have to say this type of thing would have made me more hesitant to switch from Chrome, when this change goes out to live builds you will probably see a lot of backlash from Chromium Edge users who don't like the IE style history popup.
- in my life I never used IE more than only a couple of occasions, which I had to, but I did use Edge legacy some times and this is coming from it, Edge legacy had this modern history/downloads/favorites/books etc. Hub, so you could see everything right from the toolbar, without leaving the current tab or opening 4 more extra tabs for each of them.
you can still open a whole new tab to see history, just have click on manage history on the history button
William Devereux Even when I clear my history my recently visited tabs still show up in the history section. Please help.
mujtaba15 wrote:William Devereux Even when I clear my history my recently visited tabs still show up in the history section. Please help.
Hi, which Edge version/channel are you using?
I just tried it on Version 89.0.726.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit) and it worked as expected
please make sure you set this to "all time" edge://settings/clearBrowserData
if you do it like that and still the issue persists, please send a feedback using feedback button on Edge or shortcuts (alt + shift + i)
don't like it, how do I change it back I don't need a tiny little popup on the side I want it to open up a new page, one of the reasons I started using dev instead of the vanilla microsoft edge was because when you open settings or history it opened up to new pages instead of a popup. Add and option to keep the original way of opening history you should not force these changes on people
Deleted wrote:Add and option to keep the original way of opening history you should not force these changes on people
sorry but this is what people asked, to make it like Edge legacy...
- I liked old history page more - there is more information (time) but I think small history pane also will be useful but I want to have a keyboard shortcut to open old history page - shift-ctrl-H, for example.
Now I added old history page to the favorites bar but shortcut would be useful.
also while I was writing this I found a bug - not every page is showing in "recently closed" tab vs "all" tab. I'll send feedback"History"-"All" is not only for closed tabs? There are all pages that I visited, and in "recently closed" there are only pages that I closed. Ok, that's make sense, It's my mistake then. Thanks!
- So, the iOS version still not support syncing history and open tabs?
William Devereux Great to hear the new improvement from u. May I know how to register to try "Tabs from other devices" feature.
HaHoang wrote:William Devereux Great to hear the new improvement from u. May I know how to register to try "Tabs from other devices" feature.
at the moment it is a controlled feature rollout and only available to Edge dev and canary channels.
once you are using those channels, you can turn it on from here: edge://settings/profiles/sync
