google colaboratory - Is there a way to keep colab busy even if the tab is closed?

Question

So this may be a stupid question but I can only ask here since I don't know a better place.

So this google colab thing is amazing and wonderfull but there is currently not a way to keep the server itself running without interaction.

Is there a way to do this for a long period of time without any trouble and if there is, is it also possible to physically shut down the tab or your computer to still keep it running? Yes, there is a time limit of about 12 hours that it will give you but I just want to know if there is a way to do this without having your computer on all the time. I'd love to use my phone for it although it's a really old phone that is like from 2012 that doesn't even load half of the sites correctly

Any answers? Thank you so much and have a very nice day!

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65836336/is-there-a-way-to-keep-colab-busy-even-if-the-tab-is-closed

Answer 1

The runtime session outlives closed tabs. Even if you sign out from your google account and minutes later come back and login again, your notebooks still stays at the same point, since the VM holding the kernel still runs.

Two years ago someone here on stackoverflow said that it would remain for 90 minutes if you close your tab and 12 hours if you don't - Google Colab session timeout.

I don't know if still holds. At least on their FAQ, google does not guarantee anything. In https://research.google.com/colaboratory/faq.html they only say "Virtual machines are deleted when idle for a while, and have a maximum lifetime enforced by the Colab service."