One very handy feature in Firefox is the ability to sync tabs across devices. This means if you have tabs open on your mobile device, you can sync them with your desktop.

With those tabs synced, you can open them without sharing the tabs, via the built-in Android sharing mechanism, to your desktop browser. They’re automatically there. Now this method of auto-syncing only works one way — from mobile to desktop. To share a tab from desktop to mobile, you have to work that magic manually.

But I want to talk about the auto-sync feature and how to use it.

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First steps

The first thing you must do is connect Firefox to a Firefox account. Once connected, make sure to check Open tabs in the Firefox Account preferences. Next you have to have Firefox installed on your mobile device and connected to your Firefox account. You also must have Open tabs selected in Firefox | Settings | Account Name.

With both browsers connected to your Firefox account and Open tabs enabled, head over to your desktop browser, and click on the Sidebar button to open the Sidebar. From the Sidebar drop-down, select Synced Tabs.

You should see all of the tabs currently open on your mobile device. Click on one of those tabs to open the link in your current desktop browser.

Moving mobile to desktop without missing a beat

And that, my friends, is all it takes to have your mobile browser tabs automatically available. This is a great way of moving between mobile to desktop, without missing a beat. My only request to the Firefox developers is that they make the auto-syncing go both ways, so users don’t have to manually share tabs from the desktop to the mobile device. Even with that caveat, Synced Tabs is a great Firefox feature you should use.