How to Reopen Closed Safari Tabs and Windows and Access Past History

Quickly get back to where you were

Working with tabs in Safari can be convenient and keep you organized. If you accidentally close a tab you’re using, you don’t need to open another new tab and enter the URL again.

Safari remembers the tab you just closed, and with a trip to a Safari menu or a quick keyboard command, you can reopen the lost tab.

Instructions in this article apply to Safari 10 and later.

How to Undo a Closed Tab in Safari

You can open your lost tab using four methods. The first is to either select Undo Close Tab from the Edit menu, or press Command+Z on your keyboard.

You can restore multiple tabs you’ve closed by using the command repeatedly.

Another way to reopen a page you’ve closed is to click and hold the plus sign at the far right of the Tabs bar. Usually, you click this once to open a new tab, but holding opens a menu with a list of ones you’ve recently closed. Select the one you want to reopen.

The third way is to select Reopen Last Closed Tab under the History menu or press Shift+Command+T on your keyboard.

Finally, you can find a list of tabs you’ve recently closed under the History menu. Mouse over Recently Closed to see a list of pages you can reopen, and then click the one you want to restore.

Restoring Closed Windows

If you close a Safari window, you can reopen it just as you can reopen a closed tab, but the command is under a different menu. Select Reopen Last Closed Window under the History menu, or press Shift+Command+T on your keyboard.

The Reopen Last Closed Window and Reopen Last Closed Tab commands share the same spot in the History menu and keyboard shortcut. Which you see depends on which you closed most recently.

Reopen Safari Windows From Last Session

Besides being able to reopen closed Safari windows and tabs, you can also open all Safari windows that were open the last time you quit Safari.

Safari, like all the Apple apps, can make use of OS X’s Resume feature, which was introduced with OS X Lion. Resume saves the state of all the open windows of an app, in this case, any Safari window you have open. The idea is that the next time you launch Safari, you can resume right where you left off.

From the History menu, select Reopen All Windows From Last Session.

How to have Safari on Mac always open with all windows from last session

If you start your day the same way you end it in Safari, then you can make your mornings much simpler. Maybe you begin with the same web-based application, internal intranet, or internet email client that you close Safari with each evening.

You can certainly bookmark those sites or pin them in Safari tabs, but there’s another way. Here’s how to have Safari on Mac open with all the windows from your last session.

Change your Safari settings

Open Safari on your Mac and then follow these simple steps.

1) Click Safari in the menu bar.

2) Select Preferences.

3) Click General in the pop-up window.

4) In the top drop-down box next to Safari opens with, pick All windows from last session.

Troubleshooting and an important note

Missing setting

If you do not see the Safari opens with option shown above, you likely have the Close windows when quitting an app setting disabled.

1) In your menu bar, click the Apple icon and select System Preferences.

2) Click General.

3) Towards the bottom, check the box next to Close windows when quitting an app.

Quitting Safari

If you’re used to closing Safari with the red X on the top left corner of the window, then opening windows from your last session automatically will not work. You must quit Safari instead of closing it.

1) With Safari open, click Safari from the menu bar.

2) Select Quit Safari.

OR

If Safari is open in your Dock, you can quit the application from there.

1) Hold the Control key and click on Safari or right-click on Safari with your mouse.

2) Select Quit from the context menu.

Wrapping it up

There are all sorts of tips for your Mac and iOS devices that make your life just that bit easier and this is a Safari trick that might come in handy for you. Are you going to give it a try or do you prefer to use bookmarks or pinned tabs for your regularly-opened sites instead?

iOS 7: Closing All Open Safari Windows on Your iPhone or iPad

As you may know, “Private Browsing” is what Apple calls the feature that prevents the webpages you’re viewing from being stored in your history (or being suggested as future autofill options). It’s available within both Safari on the Mac and mobile Safari, so no matter which of your devices you’re on, you can be assured that no one will be able to go back and look at what sites you’ve been to. I’m sure some of you are shrugging right now, as if to say, “So what if people look at my browsing history?” Others of you are putting clauses in your wills specifying that your computers be set on fire upon your death. I won’t comment on which camp I fall into.

So to turn this feature on for the iPhone, first tap the “Show All Windows” button at the bottom-right of your screen.

For the iPad, you’ll touch the plus button at the top-right.

On the iPhone, you’ll then see every window you’ve got open, organized in a card-deck-shuffley sort of way. (Don’t you love my highly technical language?) Just so you know, you can swipe any window from right to left to close it on that screen.

For all device types, if you want to turn on Private Browsing, you’ll tap the “Private” button.

This tip isn’t just about toggling that on, however—oh my, no. Instead, I want to highlight the fact that when you do touch that “Private” button, Safari will ask you if you’d like to close all existing windows (or iPad tabs) before you switch over to the new mode.

Select “Close All,” and it’ll do just that. You’ll see that Safari’s swapped to a dark grey interface, which indicates that you’re currently browsing privately.

At that point, you can repeat the steps above to switch back to normal browsing if you want to. And y es, I blurred out the names of my bookmarks. No reason. I said, NO REASON. Move along.

Question: Q: Accidentally closed all Safari tabs, possible to restore?

I use the iPad (iPadOS 13.2.2) for research and tend to have a lot of tabs open. Now I accidentally hit «close all tabs». With «recently closed tabs» I could restore 200 tabs, but I actually had even more open. Next I tried to erase the iPad and restore from the last backup (made before the «close all tabs») but it actually restored the tabs that were open just before erasing.

Is there a way to get the tabs back? And is there a way to undo the «close all tabs» if it happens again?

iPad Pro 9.7-inch WiFi

Posted on Nov 17, 2019 9:22 AM

Helpful answers

If you accidentally close a Safari window, you can restore it together with all its open tabs.

In iPadOS, you can now have multiple App windows (instances) of the same App — including Safari. With the new OS, many Users who have not learned about the new features are opening a second (or more) instance of Safari — and inadvertently closing (or simply hiding) an existing instance together with its open tabs.

If this happens to you, from your remaining Safari instance, swipe-up from the bottom edge of the screen just enough to reveal the dock. Don’t use the flick gesture as this will return you to the last used home screen; similarly, don’t swipe upward to the centre of the screen and pause — as this will invoke the task switcher.

With both the Safari window and dock visible, simply tap the Safari icon. You will be presented with a screen containing all the open Safari windows (instances) — and in the top right corner should be a “Reopen Closed Window” button. Tapping this will recover the last closed Safari window. Alternatively just tap on any one of the other open instances.

If you haven’t already done so, I recommend that you download and assimilate the iPad User Guide for iPadOS from the Apple Books App. It’s free — and will explain all the new features, enhancements and gestures of the new OS. Simple search for “Apple” to find all the free Apple User Guides. These guides are frequently overlooked — and provide a rich source of information.

I hope this helps to resolve your issues — and provides useful pointers to additional information.

Question: Q: close all Safari windows iPad Pro

How do I close all open windows on a new iPad Pro? The help file says to click on the tabs icon, then Close all Windows, but that option does not appear on my iPad. Thanks!

Posted on Jan 9, 2021 12:52 PM

Pinch in with two fingers in the Safari app, it will show all of your tabs, swipe left to close them out.

Posted on Jan 9, 2021 1:03 PM

Helpful answers

Are you holding the icon for a couple seconds?

My screenshot is from a new iPad, running the latest version of iOS.

Jan 9, 2021 1:12 PM

There’s more to the conversation

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Tap and hold the tabs icon for a couple seconds. You will then see the required command.

Jan 9, 2021 12:58 PM

Pinch in with two fingers in the Safari app, it will show all of your tabs, swipe left to close them out.

Jan 9, 2021 1:03 PM

As I said in my post, I do not have those options on my iPad. Maybe because of the new iOS?

Jan 9, 2021 1:10 PM

Are you holding the icon for a couple seconds?

My screenshot is from a new iPad, running the latest version of iOS.

Jan 9, 2021 1:12 PM

Thank you—I was holding the icon for a few seconds but since there was only one tab open, I didn’t get that choice. Stupid of me! Thanks for your help.

Jan 9, 2021 3:49 PM

You are quite welcome. Enjoy 😊.

Jan 9, 2021 3:58 PM

Question: Q: close all Safari windows iPad Pro More Less