SUMMARY Dolphin always restores all tabs from last close. Even if a secondary instance and so on is opened. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Open Dolphin 2. Create multiple Tabs 3. Close Dolphin 4. Open Dolphin (Tabs are restored) 5. Open another Dolphin (New Instance, Middle Click on Icon, or Meta+E) OBSERVED RESULT On the second instance all tabs from last close are there again. Especially when many tabs are open, this is annoying. EXPECTED RESULT A fresh start of Dolphin, with no tabs opened. (Just like "New Window" / Ctrl+N) SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: Manjaro Linux KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.89.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I agree with all of the above. There should be no restoration happening when a Dolphin instance is already running.
I'm not sure why this is a problem. What prevents from just using "New Window" / Ctrl+N for this?
*** Bug 442753 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 504588 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/merge_requests/1257
Git commit 173794ce15620aa0c673464f532cfd67f55ab278 by Méven Car, on behalf of Sergey Katunin. Committed on 04/05/2026 at 08:42. Pushed by meven into branch 'master'. Restore session if this is the first instance 1. Restore session if this is the first instance even with "new-window" option. Otherwise, if Dolphin has not been opened before, and a program (such as browsers or Kate) that launch Dolphin with "new-window" option will start Dolphin, it opens only with one tab and closes the user's previous session. With this patch, the behavior is similar to how the first instance of browsers opens with setting for tab recovery enabled. Also restore sessions if this is restoring multiple instances with session restoration after reboot enabled. 2. Dolphin should not restore all tabs for additional instances. This is especially noticeable if the "Keep a single Dolphin window, opening new folders in tabs" checkbox is turned off, and when the Dolphin window is already open (with several tabs), folders from the desktop (plasmashell) are opened by double-clicking. Desktop opens a new Dolphin window with the tabs restored and an open folder at the end. Related: bug 464693, bug 469271 M +6 -4 src/main.cpp https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/commit/173794ce15620aa0c673464f532cfd67f55ab278
*** Bug 469271 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***