A large number of PC users prefer using mouse or touchpad over keyboard shortcuts to close and open web browser tabs. If you also use mouse or touchpad to close and open tabs, at times, you probably accidentally close important tabs by clicking the close button.

Extensions are available for third-party browsers to protect or lock tabs but there is no extension as such for Microsoft Edge as of now. However, there are two ways to avoid accidentally closing tabs in Edge browser.

Avoid accidentally closing Edge tabs in Windows 10

Microsoft Edge browser in Windows 10 allows you to pin tabs to the browser. When a tab is pinned to the browser, the close icon doesn’t show up for that tab. That means you cannot easily close a pinned tab. To close a pinned tab using mouse or touchpad, you will need to right-click on the pinned tab and then click close tab option or unpin the tab first and then close it by clicking on the close icon. However, note that pinned tabs can be closed quickly using Ctrl + W keyboard shortcut.

Here is how to pin a tab in Edge browser in Windows 10.

Step 1: Right-click on a tab and then click Pin option. This will pin the tab.

To unpin a tab, right-click on it and then click Unpin option.

There is another way to protect your important tabs in Edge browser. The Set tabs aside feature can be used to put aside tabs when they are not being used and then restore them when you want to browse them again.

For instance, if you have www.intowindows.com open in a tab but don’t want to go through the page right away, you can set aside this tab. When you set aside a tab, it will not appear anywhere on your screen. To see all set aside tabs, you will need to click Tabs you’ve set aside icon located at the top-left of the Edge window. Click on the thumbnail of a tile to restore it.

The only downside of this feature is that you cannot set aside a single tab at a time when you have multiple tabs. When you click the Set these tabs aside button, all currently open tabs except pinned tabs will be put aside.

Do let us know if there is a better way to avoid accidentally closing tabs in Edge browser.