Importing Tabs and Settings from Chrome

[Elliot Kirk]

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). 

[#2]

Merry 2020 to you as well ;)

"Alternately, we will fix this from our side to ensure our users are not impacted. "

This is great!

[#3]

I can't import passwords from Chrome Beta to EdgeDev

[#4]

Yes unfortunately only Google Chrome stable is supported for importing data (passwords, favorites, address etc). Beta/Stable/Canary channels are not..not sure why though..

you can however export your passwords on Google chrome to a text file
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95606?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

Or use an extension such as Lastpass that works on all devices and browsers. (Android, IOS, Windows, Mac, Linux. Firefox, Google Chrome, new Edge, old Edge etc)
https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/bbcinlkgjjkejfdpemiealijmmooekmp?hl=en-US

[#5]

@Elliot Kirk  I want to know when/if Edge will supports importing Chrome Extensions from either an already configured install of Edge in your Edge browser account, like Chrome does in your Chrome account, and/or from in install of Chrome on the same device. I'm sure you would agree that the Edge Store has a very limited supply of Extensions and You should be concerned that without the capability to import Chrome Extensions, that this will be an impediment of the adoption of Edge Chromium. Just being able to manually install all of your Chrome Extensions on Edge is not enough, because nobody will put up with doing that every time that add a new device.

[#6]

@Elliot Kirk  @Elliot Kirk  I want to know when/if Edge will supports importing Chrome Extensions from either an already configured install of Edge in your Edge browser account, like Chrome does in your Chrome account, and/or from in install of Chrome on the same device. I'm sure you would agree that the Edge Store has a very limited supply of Extensions and You should be concerned that without the capability to import Chrome Extensions, that this will be an impediment of the adoption of Edge Chromium. Just being able to manually install all of your Chrome Extensions on Edge is not enough, because nobody will put up with doing that every time that add a new device.

[#7]

@Ulti_P_Uzer
the New Edge is fully compatible with Chrome store extensions. So, you are not restricted to just a few hundreds extensions that are currently on the Edge Store (though this number is expected to grow heavily).
See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2072338&hl=en-US
for how to do this.

[#8]

@csrswalch 
Hi,
I have the same quirk and i am using also the path: ${roaming_app_data}\Google\Chrome\User Data
I solved this by setting the Microsoft Edge user data directory via temporary GPO to the same path used by Google Chrome.

When you start Edge it will use the Google Chrome data straight away without the need to import.

I did not test it with every data set (like passwords), but my bookmarks are perfectly shown inside Chrome and Edge. Finally sync the data to your Edge profile and get rid of the chrome data and temporary GPO.

[#9]

Importing open tabs does not work

[#10]

I'm seeing the same problem,
Seems like a minor thing, but I'm not migrating to Edge until this can be done automatically.

[#11]

@Elliot Kirk 

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I have NOT been able to import all of my open tabs in Chrome to Edge. I think I correctly followed the instructions. I get a message that they are being imported but I don't see any of the tabs in Edge. I expected that all of the Chrome tabs would be opened in Edge.

In Edge Profiles/Import browser data I clicked on the "Choose what to import" button and turned on "Open tabs" for this I turned off all other options. Because I had previously run the import I did not want to import them again. I was not sure if this would impact the previous execution of importing.

In the "Learn more about these settings" I see the following:

Select this option to import your Pinned and open tabs from Google Chrome. Imported tabs are added to the current active window of Microsoft Edge. Currently on Windows, Google Chrome needs to be closed for this feature to work.

Chrome was closed, I currently have about 155 open tabs in 55 Chrome windows.

I've also encountered several other issues, I'm not sure where to post the questions about them at this time.

[#12]

I 'm having the same problem. I followed the steps as directed above, but I cannot find any of the tabs from the Chrome window in any of the Edge windows I currently have open, not did the open tabs appear as bookmarks. :\ Where did they go? It'll will be seriously annoying if I have to reopen Chrome and copy the URLs one by one, by hand. >:[

[#13]

i was able to get the feature to work by closing Chrome first.  With many tabs open, that can take a moment even after the windows have vanished – you can check via the Task Manager (<Win>+<r>taskmgr<Enter>) whether a program has finished terminating.

Duplicate tabs are lost, tho.

@ragged-gothic even if you can’t get it to work, you definitely don’t have to go through each tab by hand.  As a workaround for this apparent bug, you could right-click the Chrome tab bar and choose Bookmark all tabs…  (No doubt you could find an extension for automating this for all Chrome windows.)

( The rest may not be worth mentioning:

1. edge://settings/profiles/importBrowsingData
2. (re-)import bookmarks
3. ctrl+shift+O
4. note that when re-importing bookmarks/favorites, newly added ones will not be sorted into their original position, but appended to the end of the list, so you may have to scroll down to find your bookmarked tabs.
5. you may want to switch off your WiFi now to prevent straining your pc and filling up its memory by loading all those tabs at the same time
6. open the whole folder
7. turn on WiFi again

)

(With this method, Edge also purges duplicate tabs, so neither is it perfect in preserving the data unscathed.)

[#14]

@Elliot Kirk 

Szia,

Ezt az importálást hol tudom végleg letiltani / kitörölni.
Agyvérzés, hogy minden nap letölti a Chrome-ból a könyvjelzőket, pedig elvileg nincs bekapcsolva a szinkronizálás..

[#15]

alex