How to Reopen Recently Closed Tabs in Safari on Mac

You clicked the wrong button and a Safari tab vanished. The page is still recoverable, whether you closed it a minute ago or last week, and you don't need a third-party extension to get it back.

Press Command-Shift-T for the most recent tab, or open History and choose the exact page from Recently Closed. Separate steps cover closed windows, older visits, and iPhone or iPad.

In this guide, I have covered:

Closed a tab by mistake? Undo it with a keyboard shortcut

You closed a tab and the tab bar is suddenly one page lighter. Safari hasn’t thrown that page away. It keeps a short list of closed items, and one key combination pulls the newest one back.

1. Bring Apple Safari to the front.
2. Press Cmd + Shift + T at the same time.
3. Look for the closed page to reappear in a tab.
4. Repeat the shortcut to reopen the next closed tab.

You’ll know it worked when the page appears in a new tab. Press the shortcut again and Safari walks backwards through your closed tabs, one at a time.

That combination is worth memorizing. Our Safari keyboard shortcuts guide lists the rest.

Pick the exact page from the Recently Closed list

Command-Shift-T restores whatever you closed last. When that’s the wrong page, or you want a tab you closed ten minutes ago instead of ten seconds ago, the Recently Closed list gives you a choice.

On Safari for Mac, that list lives inside the macOS History menu. There’s no sidebar for it, which is why a lot of people never find it.

1. Open Apple Safari.
2. Select History from the macOS menu bar.
3. Hover over Recently Closed to open the list.
   
4. Select the website or tab you want to reopen.

You’ll know it worked when the selected page opens in a tab. Working down the list beats pressing the shortcut five times and dragging four extra tabs along with the one you wanted.

Bring back a closed window or the whole last session

Sometimes it isn’t one tab. You hit the red button on a window holding eight tabs, and the whole workspace is gone.

Safari treats a closed window as a bigger event than a closed tab, so it gets its own commands. All of them sit in the History menu.

• Choose Reopen Last Closed Tab to restore the most recently closed tab.
• Choose Reopen Last Closed Window to restore the most recently closed window.
• Choose Reopen All Windows from Last Session to restore the windows from your last session.

You’ll know it worked when the window returns with the tabs still in the order you left them.

Safari doesn’t record Private Browsing in History, so a page closed in a private window won’t turn up in Recently Closed or in the history list. That’s by design, not a glitch.

Find a page you closed days ago

Recently Closed is a short list, not an archive. A page you closed last week is unlikely to be sitting in it, but Safari’s date-based history still records the visit.

1. Open Apple Safari.
2. Select History from the macOS menu bar.
3. Choose the date range that includes the visit.
4. Select the page link you want to open.

You’ll know it worked when the old page loads in a tab. If nothing matches, open a fresh tab and type the address directly: history only holds what Safari actually recorded.

RELATED: How to Open Private Browsing Mode and New Tabs in Safari on Mac

Reopen a closed tab on Safari for iPhone or iPad

You’re on your phone or iPad, you swipe a tab away, and there’s no History menu to hover over. The recovery still exists, just behind a long press.

1. Open Safari on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap Tabs to show the tab overview.
3. Touch and hold the New Tab button marked +.
4. Tap the closed tab you want to reopen.

One tab comes back per long press, so repeat the gesture if you need several. For the full walkthrough, see our guide to reopening closed tabs in Safari on iPhone and iPad.