There are many a times when I have closed Firefox in a hurry while using the hotkey Ctrl + W though I never intended to do so. It’s quite annoying at times and then I have to restart Firefox which is slow at times and go to history and load the last page. Even though this can be done by session restore I would rather not use it when I cleanly close Firefox.

There is a neat little trick though that allows you to disable this hotkey for the last tab with the extension Tab Mix Plus.

Using this extension I can disable the hotkey for the last tab which means I am forced to closed the last tab using the close button in Firefox. This tip is also intended for those who are already using Tab Mix Plus and want to enable the hotkey for the last tab and could not find any solution.

For those who are still not using the Tab Mix Plus extension you can download the extension from the link below.

Download Tab Mix Plus Firefox extension.

Getting back to the trick now, once you have the extension installed you can now enable or disable the hotkey based on your preference by following the instructions below.

Go to Tools -> Tab Mix Plus Options.

You should see something like the image below.

In the options page go to the Events tab and select the Tab Closing sub tab.

Depending on your preference if you want to disable the last window from closing using the hotkey Ctrl + W, check the box next to Do not close window when closing last tab by hotkey.

On the other hand if you want to use the hotkey Ctrl + W to close the last window you need to uncheck the box.

That’s it no more cursing that you closed the last tab my mistake, this trick saves a good amount of time and curses. Let me know if this was useful for you and if you have any other tricks that may be helpful in making Firefox a better experience on the web.

This little trick will only work if you have the Tab Mix Plus extension installed with Firefox, if you do not have it then use the link below to download it.

Download Tab Mix Plus Firefox extension.