Edge sync across laptops

[AndiRobinson]

I have a new laptop and want to sync my open browser tabs, bookmarks, etc. I am logged in and sync is on in Edge on my current laptop. I am logged in and sync is on in Edge on my new laptop. But I am not seeing my open tabs, bookmarks, etc on Edge on my new laptop. What could I be doing wrong? I have all the boxes ticked in the sync settings to indicate all the items that I want synced. Thanks.

[#2]

On both machines, go to edge://sync-internals as explained here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-troubleshoot-enterprise-sync

The information there should help you start to narrow down the problem (e.g. to a computer, account, or network level).

Additionally, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure both computers are updated to the same version of Edge and are signed in (for syncing purposes) to the _exact same_ account, as mentioned here:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/edge/comments/lnd011/edge_sync_not_working/

[#3]

I am not actually getting an error message. It is just not syncing my open tabs. My bookmarks are now syncing, but not my open tabs. I went into the edge://sync-internals and there was no error there either. Do I need to maybe close Edge on my current laptop and then open Edge on my new laptop?

[#4]

I’m not sure if tab syncing is actually implemented yet in production. (I use _way_ too many tabs to risk turning that feature on!) They had the check-box for tab syncing there long ago, so that when it _was_ implemented, users who wished to opt-out wouldn’t have to return to the settings. (They probably should have had that line colored in grey or somesuch, but almost the entire public life of Edge Chromium has been during a pandemic so I’m allowing them some extra grace here.)

By checking edge://sync-internals on your first machine (there should be a table in the lower-right? corner of the first tab) you should be able to see how many favorites, passwords, tabs, etc. have been uploaded. Does it show there that any tabs are even being sent to the sync server yet?

That same screen, viewed from each computer, should also show you whether or not sync is done from the perspective of that browser.

Finally, you can always create a new, temporary Edge user profile on either computer and sign in to check syncing with fresh settings … just remember to delete that extra profile when you’re done testing.

[#5]

@JimGrisham I assume this is what you mean? 

That same info is showing on both devices. 

There is also this (which is also the same across devices):

If I am understanding you correctly, if everything checks out I might just have to move my tabs manually?

[#6]

I think I may have figured out two workarounds! (1) Create a collection of your open tabs. Then on the second device, you can open them from that collection. (2) If you right-click on a tab, there is an option to send that link to your other device. Then it just pops up in Edge on my 2nd laptop. That seems to work pretty well.

[#7]

Yes, that is showing there are 0 tabs being synced in your case.

(There’s a possibility that tab sync may be implemented in the ‘Beta’ or ‘Dev’ versions; I don’t have knowledge either way.)

If you want to manually transfer tabs from one device to another, you can right-click on one of them and select “Save tabs to favorites” and you will be prompted to create a new Favorites folder for them. Those favorites will be synced to your other computer and then you can with a single action open that entire folder of Favorites into tabs in a new window.

So indeed manual, but also semiautomatic, after a fashion.

Best of luck,

- Jim

[I imagine proper tab synchronization is taking a while because it can involve _many_ other things besides the URL and tab order - the developers will have to figure out how to reliably synchronize (or explicitly choose not to synchronize) the many things users may expect to be preserved for _each_ tab and how to deal with conflicts: the forward/backward history stacks for each tab, scroll position, audio/video playback pause position, data entered in forms, cookies, other page data (Javascript timers, variables and ‘Local Data’ folders), etc. It’s quite the ambitious project.]

[#8]

Thank you for walking me through this! It was very helpful.