Support & help

Last updated: 2026-09-20

Retrace is a small, independent product, and we help you directly by email — no tickets, no bots, no call queue. This page covers how to reach us, and how to use Retrace: the free features, the on-device AI, and the paid Backup & restore.

How to reach us

• Purchases, license keys & Backup & restore → support@retrace-addon.store
• General or privacy questions → contact@retrace-addon.store

Not sure which to use? Just email support@retrace-addon.store. We're a solo team and reply as soon as we can — usually within 1–2 business days, and every message is answered by a person. If you hit a problem, please email us before requesting a refund — we can usually fix it quickly.

The basics: sessions & Spaces

A session is a saved snapshot of a window's tabs that you can search and reopen later. A Space is a folder that gathers related sessions over time. Retrace has three surfaces that share one design — a compact popup, a side panel, and a full page — and you can work from any of them.

Using the free features

• Save a window — click Save to store the current window as a session, or press the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+S). Saving the same window again refreshes that session instead of creating a duplicate.
• Save just some tabs — in the side panel or full page, tick the tabs you want and the button switches to “Save N tabs.”
• Reopen — open a session to restore its whole set of tabs in a window.
• Pin — pin the sessions that matter so they reopen when your browser starts (you can turn this on in Settings).
• Archive — tuck sessions you don't need often out of the main list without deleting them.
• Rename & delete — rename any session, or delete it; destructive actions show an Undo.
• Grow a session — use Add this window to fold the current tabs into an existing session, or remove a single tab from it.
• Spaces — create folders and move sessions into them to keep related work together.
• Search & history — search every session by title, summary, or tab; restore recently closed windows; and browse a searchable log of what you did.

Using the on-device AI features

On a supported device, Retrace uses your browser's built-in, on-device AI (Chrome's Gemini Nano, or Edge's own on-device model) to make your sessions easier to scan. It can:

• write a one-line summary of a session,
• suggest a name for it,
• group related tabs, and write a short brief,
• auto-organize loose sessions into the right Space.

How to use it: it mostly just works — when you save a session, Retrace writes the summary and name automatically, and auto-organize is a button in the Spaces view. The first time, your browser may need to do a one-time download of the AI model in the background; after that it runs offline.

This runs entirely on your device — nothing about your tabs is ever sent anywhere. It needs a reasonably capable desktop (enough disk and memory/GPU for the model). If your device doesn't support it, Retrace quietly falls back to clear domain-based summaries instead — everything else still works. On-device AI is a free bonus, never something you pay for.

Using Backup & restore (paid)

Backup & restore is the one optional paid feature — a one-time $10 unlock, available in the Microsoft Edge version of Retrace. Here's the whole flow:

1. Buy the unlock on our checkout. You'll receive a license key by email that looks like RTRC-….
2. Open Retrace › Settings › Backup & restore, paste your key, and press Unlock. It's verified offline on your device — Export and Import turn on right away.
3. Export writes a single file containing your sessions, Spaces, history, and settings. Save it wherever you like — it never leaves your device unless you move it.
4. Import reads a file you pick. Merge (the default) is non-destructive — it only adds sessions and Spaces you don't already have. Replace overwrites everything with the file's contents.

Use it to move your data to another device, or to restore after a reinstall. The Chrome version is free and doesn't include this feature.

When you email us, please include

• the email you purchased with (and your Paddle order number, if you have it);
• which browser and version you're on (Chrome or Edge);
• a short note on what you were doing and what happened — a screenshot is ideal.

We will never ask you to send us your license key — your key is yours alone. To help, we only need your order number and a description of the problem. Anyone asking you to email your key is not us.

Common questions

• My license key hasn't arrived. Keys are issued by hand, so allow a few hours and check your spam/junk. After 2 business days with nothing, email support@retrace-addon.store.
• My key won't activate. Paste the whole key, including the RTRC- prefix, into Settings › Backup & restore › Unlock. Still stuck? Email us your Paddle order number (never your key) and we'll help you sort it out.
• The AI isn't writing summaries. Your device may not support on-device AI, or the model is still downloading. Retrace falls back to domain summaries meanwhile — that's expected, not a fault.
• A reopened session didn't restore what was on a page. A session is a record of the tabs you saved, not a snapshot of unsaved in-page content — browsers can't capture that.

What our support covers

We help by email, in English. There's no phone line or live chat — keeping support lean is part of what keeps Retrace private and inexpensive. If something is genuinely broken and we can't fix it, you're covered by our Refund Policy.

Pricing · Refund Policy · Terms of Sale · Privacy Policy