- General
-
Questions
import/export
Is there a way to import into TO? I'm trying to shift from TooManyTabs Extension to this one, but can seem to import the tabs list from that extension to this one.
Answer
Maybe the simplest option is just to reopen all of the tabs by TMT that you want to import, and then just save them again using the TO, by window save-close button, or by using the "save-close All Open Windows" button from the main toolbar.
If must be done only once, this is definitely faster than writing conversion script, even if need to reopen up to several thousands tabs.
After that, the Tabs Outliner tree can be exported in plain HTML by Ctrl-S in the TO view.
And from this exported HTML windows and hierarchies can be dragged back to TO View, without reopening them. This is actually one of the way how import data back (exist other ways, but not through the TO user interface).
But really, if this only the windows in other session manager, it will be much easy to just reopen all of them and save again in TO.
Yes, the help page says ctl-s to save it as a html file and that it can be dragged back to TO view. But can you be more specific about "dragged back to TO"? Do I open the file in a browser or an editor? And once opened, how to drag back to TO?
The working way to do this is documented here - https://www.naturalborncoder.com/miscellaneous/2021/06/08/tabs-outliner-backup-and-restore/
Briefly:
Location, Location, Location
The key location you need to know about is shown below, %USERNAME% is your current Windows username. We’ll call this the working directory.
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\IndexedDB
NOTE: The “Default” towards the end is the name of the Chrome profile you are working with. If you have multiple profiles you’ll have multiple paths like this with profile names replacing the “Default”. I don’t use multiple profiles and I can’t remember ever seeing anyone use them so chances are “Default” is all you need to know about.
Backing Up the Data
Within the working directory are two sub-folders called:
chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0.indexeddb.blob chrome-extension_eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl_0.indexeddb.leveldb
These are the folders that contain the current working data for Tabs Outliner and they need to be backed up. I use the free Veeam Backup Community Edition to backup my whole home folder and store it on my NAS, this captures the above folder as part of that process.
You can also expand the whole tree in the Tabs Outliner window and right click Save As on that window. This will give you a web page that contains all the tabs in your tree. This feature really only seems to be useful for emergencies though.
Restoring the Data
This process is, unfortunately, a bit involved but relatively simple.
- Uninstall Tabs Outliner if it’s currently installed. Note that you have to uninstall it, disabling it is not enough. Tabs Outliner stores internal backups of the data. If you don’t uninstall it before restoring it’ll over-write your restored data with an internal backup.
- Open explorer and navigate to the working directory then copy in the two folders mentioned in the “Backing Up the Data” section.
- Reinstall Tabs Outliner from the extensions store. When you open the Tabs Outliner overview window it will read the data in the two folders you just restored and re-populate your tab tree.
Customer support service by UserEcho
Maybe the simplest option is just to reopen all of the tabs by TMT that you want to import, and then just save them again using the TO, by window save-close button, or by using the "save-close All Open Windows" button from the main toolbar.
If must be done only once, this is definitely faster than writing conversion script, even if need to reopen up to several thousands tabs.
After that, the Tabs Outliner tree can be exported in plain HTML by Ctrl-S in the TO view.
And from this exported HTML windows and hierarchies can be dragged back to TO View, without reopening them. This is actually one of the way how import data back (exist other ways, but not through the TO user interface).
But really, if this only the windows in other session manager, it will be much easy to just reopen all of them and save again in TO.