Stop Safari From Opening All Bookmarks on Launch

Opening Safari and getting a wall of old tabs back is jarring, especially when you just wanted a clean window. Those tabs are not bookmarks. They are the windows and tabs Safari saved from your last session, and macOS restores them by default.

Two settings inside Safari control that behavior, and a third macOS toggle can override them both. If you only need one clean launch right now, hold Shift while you open Safari.

In this guide, I have covered:

Why Safari Seems to Open All Your Bookmarks at Launch

You open Safari and land on a wall of tabs you thought you had closed. None of them are new, and none of them are bookmarks. Safari is restoring the windows and tabs from your last session, and macOS does that by default.

Three controls decide what you see on launch: the Safari opens with menu, the New windows open with menu right below it, and a system-wide toggle in Desktop & Dock. Change them in that order.

Apple documents all three in its guide to controlling which windows Safari reopens on Mac. If you only need one clean launch right now, skip ahead to the Shift-key section.

Change “Safari opens with” in Safari Settings

This is the setting most people miss, and it is usually the one behind the flood of tabs. The Safari opens with menu decides what Safari shows the moment it launches.

1. Open the Safari menu bar and choose Settings….
2. Stay on the General tab (it opens by default).
3. Click the Safari opens with pop-up menu and select A new window.
4. Quit and reopen Safari to confirm it now launches to a single empty window instead of your previous session.

If Safari still reopens your old windows, that dropdown is probably set to All windows from last session. On some macOS versions the wording is All non-private windows from last session. Pick A new window instead and the restore stops.

Adjust “New windows open with”

Even after that change, every new Safari window can still pull in your previous tabs. The dropdown directly below Safari opens with sets what a fresh window contains.

1. Stay in Safari Settings → General.
2. Click the New windows open with pop-up menu.
3. Choose Empty Page or Start Page (avoid the “Tabs from last session” choice).
4. Open a new Safari window to confirm it starts blank (or on your chosen page) with no old tabs restored.

You only need to touch this second dropdown if Safari opens with is set to A new window. The two settings work as a pair: the first decides whether Safari restores windows at all, the second decides what each new window contains.

Use the System-Wide “Close windows when quitting an application” Toggle

Safari is not the only app that reopens what you left open. macOS keeps its own switch, Close windows when quitting an application, and when it is on, every app closes its windows on quit instead of bringing them back at the next launch.

1. Click the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
2. Click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar (you may need to scroll down to find it).
3. Scroll to the Windows section.
4. Turn on Close windows when quitting an application.
5. Quit and reopen Safari to test the new behavior.

TIP: This is the same toggle that controls whether Mail, Finder, TextEdit, and other Apple apps reopen their windows. Turning it on makes Safari (and every other app) start fresh next time you launch it.

Skip Session Restore for One Launch

Sometimes you do not want to change a single setting. You just want this launch to come up clean while you get something done.

Hold the Shift key while Safari opens, and it ignores the saved session for that launch only. Your settings stay as they are, and the next normal launch behaves as before.

1. Hold down Shift.
2. Click the Safari icon in the Dock (or open it from Spotlight while still holding Shift).
3. Release Shift once Safari is open and confirm there are no restored tabs.

After you change the settings above, this is the quickest way to check whether they took: hold Shift, open Safari, and see whether you land on a blank window.

What to Do If Safari Still Reopens Everything

You changed both menus and Safari still restores the whole session. On macOS Sonoma and a few macOS Sequoia builds, the system-wide toggle has been reported to be ignored intermittently. Work through the steps below in order.

1. Quit Safari fully with Safari → Quit Safari (or Cmd+Q), not just by closing the last window.
2. Reboot the Mac so the new setting takes effect on a clean launch.
3. Open Safari once and confirm it loads a single blank window.
4. If old tabs still come back, toggle Close windows when quitting an application off, then on, then restart the Mac again.
5. As a last resort, check that no third-party profile manager or MDM tool is forcing session restoration.

Quit Safari with Quit Safari (not just by closing the last window). If Safari is still running in the background when you change the settings, the next reopen can use the old session state and look like nothing changed.

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