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How to Stop Tab Auto-close in Safari Browser

Learn how to stop autoclosing tabs in the Safari browser after inactivity on iPhone/iPad and Mac computers. We can easily turn off autoclose feature in Safari.

The Safari browser is optimized for Apple devices which autokills the dormant and inactive processes. If the browsing tab is not running, Safari will stop allocating the process thread, freeing up the memory space for the active tasks. You can set autoclose for tabs; however, you can also stop the autoclose tab by setting it to the manual option.

Stop Auto-close Inactive Tabs in Safari browser

It would be justified to say that Apple did manage to capture the attention of its user base with its impressive offerings.

SharePlay, Focus Mode, and Redesigned Notifications are some of their noteworthy features. Similarly, its default browser is imbibed with some nifty functionalities.

The ability to send the address bar to the bottom for ease of one-hand usage, the new Website Tinting that blends the tab bar with the website’s color, and the ability to change the start page’s background did manage to gather a few positive receptions.

However, despite all these goodies, one issue is bugging the users as of late. Whenever they open Safari, it reverts to a blank home page rather than opening the tabs of the previous browsing session.

It creates great inconvenience for the users, who must go through their search history and manually open those websites. Fortunately, there do exist a couple of workarounds that have managed to rectify this issue.

So without further ado, let’s check out the methods to stop Safari from auto-closing tabs.

Tab Autoclose on Safari iPhone

The Safari browser has a built-in tab management feature that automatically closes all the tabs after a specific period. It is mainly done to preserve the battery life and free up memory for other active tasks.

But as you might have guessed, this feature is usually the primary culprit when discussing the tab autocloses issue. Therefore, it is recommended to keep this feature disabled across your concerned device. Here are the steps to do so:

  1. Launch the Phone Settings app on the iPhone.
  2. Scroll and select the Safari app from the settings list.
  3. Scroll to the Tabs section, and choose to open the Close Tab option.
    Close Tabs option in Safari Settings on iPhone
  4. Set the option to Manually from the list.
    Manually Close Tabs in Safari iPhone browser settings

That’s it; the autoclosing of the inactive tabs will be immediately disabled. The tabs will be closed only when you manually close them using the X from the tabs menu.

Stop Autoclose on Safari Mac

When we close Safari on Mac, all the tabs are automatically terminated, and when relaunched, the homepage or startup page appears by default.

However, we can make a simple change to help relaunch the same tabs we had before closing the Safari browser.

  1. Launch the Safari app on your Mac.
  2. Click on the Safari menu and select Settings from the drop-down.
    Apple Safari Settings menuIt will open the Settings window for the Safari browser.
  3. Switch to the General tab in the Preferences window.
  4. Under Safari opens with settings, select All windows from last session drop-down option.
    Safari opens with all windows from last session preference
  5. Relaunch the Safari Mac browser.

While the options are named differently across the Mac and iPhone, they both carry the same objective to prevent Safari from auto-closing the tabs.

Next time when you launch the browser, all the tabs will automatically start loading.

Bottom Line

We conclude this guide on stopping Safari from automatically closing the tabs. It is undoubtedly an infuriating experience when you would have to let go of all your opened tabs without intervention.

However, the workarounds we shared above should rectify the issue.

But even if the browser is forced to quit or abruptly closed due to any memory issue, it isn’t a cause of concern as the browser shall automatically load those tabs the next time you launch the Safari browser.

The close tab feature within Safari is helpful for users who forget to close the inactive tabs. If you’re one of those people, set the preferred time for autoclose.

Lastly, if you've any thoughts or feedback on How to Stop Tab Auto-close in Safari Browser, then feel free to drop in below comment box. You can also report the outdated information.

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Sadique Hassan

Sadique is a Bachelor of Computer Application in Computer Science and an MBA professional. He became a tech writer by choice and has continued pursuing it for the last 7+ years. He is keenly interested in open-source technology like Android and also loves troubleshooting the tech. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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