safari restore last session

How to Restore Recently Closed Tabs and Windows in Safari

Ever close a browser tab by accident or lost a number of tabs after Safari crashed? It happens to the best of us. Thankfully, you can quickly reopen your last closed tab or restore tabs from your last browsing session with the tips below.

Open the Last Closed Tab in Safari on the Mac

Safari lets you undo your action of closing a tab--as long as you act promptly. If you close a tab by mistake and then open a new tab, you won't be able to restore the closed tab with the shortcut below, because the undo feature only works on your last action.

In OS X, after closing a tab, press Command+Z , the standard Mac keyboard shortcut for Undo. Your lost tab will be instantly restored. Alternatively, you can go to the Edit menu and select "Undo Close Tab".

For other tabs you've closed before the last one, head to the History men u for the list of sites you've recently visited.

Reopen Closed Windows in Safari on the Mac

You can also reopen a Safari window with the tabs you had open even days after closing the window or quitting Safari.

If you have more than one Safari window open and close one by mistake, go to the History menu and select "Reopen Last Closed Window."

If you quit Safari and want to restart it with all of the tabs you had open last time, go to the History menu and select Reopen All Windows from Last Session.

Stay in the know with Laptop Mag

Get our in-depth reviews, helpful tips, great deals, and the biggest news stories delivered to your inbox.

You'll be up and running with all of the windows and tabs you were using last time.

Open the Last Closed Tab in Safari on the iPad

On the iPad or iPhone , you can also quickly reopen your last tabs. Safari on iOS lets you quickly open up to five of the last tabs you closed.

Tap and hold down the new tab button (a plus icon) to bring up the list of recently closed tabs.

Tap the site to restore and the site will open in a new tab.

Google is finally deleting your Incognito mode browsing history — well, some of it

Traditional search engines are broken — can AI help?

How to FaceTime on Android: Video chat with your iPhone friends

Most Popular

By Hilda Scott 4 April 2024

By Momo Tabari 4 April 2024

By Rael Hornby 4 April 2024

By Sarah Chaney 4 April 2024

By Mark Anthony Ramirez 3 April 2024

By Hilda Scott 3 April 2024

By Madeline Ricchiuto 3 April 2024

By Sarah Chaney 3 April 2024

By Stevie Bonifield 2 April 2024

By Mark Anthony Ramirez 2 April 2024

• 2 The AI ‘revolution’ has done nothing but cause me trouble
• 3 I used DaVinci Resolve on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop and I'm ready to ditch my MacBook
• 4 Your AI girlfriend is for the streets: That AI chatbot isn’t looking for a date, just your data
• 5 How to optimize Windows 11 for gaming: Tips and tricks to get higher fps, faster load times, and more

How-To Geek

How to make safari always open your previous tabs on mac.

Tired of losing all your browser tabs when you close or restart Safari on Mac? Here's how to make Safari restore your session every time you start the app.

It can be frustrating when you need to restart Safari on your Mac and you lose what you've been working on because all of your tabs and windows close. Luckily, there's an easy way to make Safari restore your session every time you start the app. Here's how to set it up.

First, launch Safari on your Mac. At the top of your screen, click the "Safari" menu and select "Preferences."

When the "Preferences" window appears, click the "General" tab, then locate the "Safari opens with" option. In the drop-down menu beside it, select "All windows from last session" if you want all of your windows---including your Private Browsing windows ---to be restored.

If you only want your non-Private windows to be restored, select "All non-private windows from last session" in the drop-down menu.

After that, close Preferences. The next time you restart Safari, it will remember your browsing session, and all the windows and tabs you had open last time will reopen automatically. Happy browsing!

Related: How to Always Start Safari in Private Browsing Mode on a Mac

• Get Great Eclipse Photos with Your Phone
• The Best Noise-Canceling Headphones to Buy

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

Quickly get back to where you were

Tom Nelson is an engineer, programmer, network manager, and computer network and systems designer who has written for Other World Computing,and others. Tom is also president of Coyote Moon, Inc., a Macintosh and Windows consulting firm.

What to Know

• Undo a closed tab: Go to Edit > Undo Close Tab , press Command + Z , or click and hold the plus sign to the right of the Tabs bar.
• Or, select History > Reopen Last Closed Tab , go to History and mouse over Recently Closed , or press Shift + Command + T .
• Restore a closed window: Go to History > Reopen Last Closed Window . Or, History > Reopen All Windows From Last Session .

This article explains how to reopen tabs or windows you may have closed by accident in the Safari web browser. You can also use the History list to reopen sites.

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 .

Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day

• How to Restore Tabs in Chrome
• The Best Windows Keyboard Shortcuts in 2024
• How to Undo and Redo on a Mac
• How to Bring Back the Old Context Menu in Windows 11
• Using Finder Tabs in OS X
• How to Use Sticky Notes for Mac
• The Best Mac Shortcuts in 2024
• How to Use Group Tabs in Chrome
• The 20 Best Firefox Extensions of 2024
• Customize Safari Toolbar, Favorites, Tab, and Status Bars
• How to Bookmark All Tabs in Chrome on Android
• Keyboard Shortcuts for Safari on macOS
• 8 Tips for Using Safari With macOS
• How to Pin Sites in Safari and Mac OS
• Control Safari Windows With Keyboard Shortcuts
• The 30 Best Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts for 2024

5 Ways to Recover Your Safari Tabs After Restarting Your Mac

Do you keep losing all your tabs on Safari every time you restart your Mac? Here are some quick fixes to help solve that problem.

Safari offers an excellent browsing experience: it is energy efficient, works seamlessly on every Apple device, and is great at protecting your privacy. However, there is one pesky flaw you may have noticed.

Every time you restart your Mac and re-launch Safari, all the windows and tabs from your previous session will disappear. Instead, you'll see the default Safari homepage. This can be annoying if you are like many users who want to pick up right where they left off with their web browsing.

So if you've been wondering how to restart your Mac without losing your Safari tabs, here are some quick fixes you can try.

1. Pin the Tabs in Safari

If you almost always use a certain website, you can pin that tab to your Safari browser. When you pin a tab, or multiple tabs, you don't have to open them manually or worry about losing them each time you close and relaunch your browser.

When you open Safari, pinned tabs appear immediately, ready for you to access them. And even when you open a new Safari window, you never have to worry about losing your tabs. Every tab you've pinned appears the same on every window, so you don't need to worry about having different versions of the same tab on multiple windows.

Pinning a tab is not difficult. Just follow these steps:

• Start by opening the website you'd like to pin.
• Then Control-click the tab.
• A dialog should appear; choose Pin Tab from the options.
• Repeat this process for as many tabs as you'd like to pin.

Alternatively, you can place your cursor on the tab you'd like to pin and drag it to the left until the tab shrinks to the size of the website's logo.

There appears to be no limit on how many tabs you can pin on Safari at once. We tested up to 25. However, whatever the number you have, you should learn how to manage your pinned tabs in Safari .

2. Customize Safari's Settings

You may not have favorite tabs to pin. And having so many tabs permanently pinned to your Safari windows might be too much clutter for you. However, if you'd prefer to resume right where you left off whenever you open Safari, there's another simple fix in the settings.

To customize Safari's settings:

• Look to the top-left corner of your screen and click on Safari .
• In the menu that appears next, click Preferences .
• A new General window should appear; look for the Safari opens with menu.
• Click on the corresponding A new window option.
• From the list of dropdown options, you can select All windows from last session or All non-private windows from last session , depending on whichever you prefer.

Once you've completed these steps, re-launch Safari. Once you open Safari, it should open the tabs from your previous browsing session.

3. Use Safari's New Tab Button

The first two fixes are preventive strategies. If you implement them before restarting your Mac, they can prevent you from losing your tabs once you relaunch Safari. However, you may have restarted your Mac without implementing either strategy. In that case, you still don't have to worry about losing your tabs because you can use Safari's New Tab option as a corrective strategy.

You may think Safari's New Tab icon has only one purpose: to create a new tab. But it can also help you recover your recently closed tabs. Just look at the toolbar and Control-click on the New Tab icon, which looks like a plus (+) . A list of Recently Closed Tabs should appear, so you can select the one you'd like to recover.

4. Use the Undo or Reopen Action

After restarting your Mac and launching Safari, you may decide to close some tabs you no longer need. If they are a lot, you might get carried away with the monotonous task of clicking Close and accidentally closing a tab you still need.

A quick fix that can help you correct that mistake is the Undo menu or keyboard shortcut. Rather than panic when you've closed a tab or fumble with your settings, use the Undo action. It is pretty straightforward. Just follow these two steps.

Look to the top-left corner of your screen and select Edit from the options. A dialog box should appear with a list of options; click Undo Close Tab .

A quicker fix is the keyboard shortcut. To open the last tab you just closed, press this combination of keys: Shift + Cmd + T to reopen your last closed tab.

If you closed more than one tab, repeat the sequence for as many tabs as you'd like to restore. Our Safari shortcuts cheat sheet contains more keyboard shortcuts you can try on your Mac.

5. Reopen Tabs Using Your Safari History

You may have accidentally closed a window, or there may be simply too many tabs to keep pressing the combination of keys we mentioned earlier. Don't sweat it. Launch Safari and do the following. To view your history:

• Look to the top-left corner of your screen and select History from the options.
• A dialog box should appear with a list of options for you. You can choose any of these three options: Recently Closed , Recently Last Closed Tab , or Reopen All Windows from Last Session .
• Click the relevant option to reopen your recently closed tabs, or find the specific tab you're looking for in the Recently Closed dropdown.

Improve Your Browsing Experience on Safari

Losing a tab may be frustrating, but it shouldn't affect your productivity too much. With these quick fixes, you can ensure you never lose a tab on Safari if you restart your Mac. And when you close an important tab by mistake, you can always recover it.

Safari offers a brilliant browsing experience, arguably better than many other browsers, like Chrome. The experience becomes even smoother once you learn some essential Safari tricks and tips and implement them on your Mac.

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

How to make Safari open all tabs in previous session?

Is it possible to make safari to open all tabs of previous session?

(Currently using the latest Safari 5 on Windows Vista)

found answer myself.

Recently, Safari (5.0.3) on Windows added a new feature. Now you can open all tabs in your last session. It's under the menu “History▸Reopen All Windows From Last Session”. Finally. Safari is the last browser to have this feature.

for other browsers, see Link

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged safari tabs session ..

• The Overflow Blog
• How do mixture-of-experts layers affect transformer models?
• What a year building AI has taught Stack Overflow
• Featured on Meta
• New Focus Styles & Updated Styling for Button Groups
• Upcoming initiatives on Stack Overflow and across the Stack Exchange network
• Google Cloud will be Sponsoring Super User SE

Hot Network Questions

• Interpreting the output of badblocks: when is it time to replace the microsd card?
• Must I declare all items in my vehicle when crossing from the U.S. to Canada, or only those inquired about?
• Is every non recurvisely enumerable language RE-hard?
• Syncthing on ZFS a good case for Deduplication?
• Baseball caught: Ownership? Can one leave?
• Are there any international laws / treaties that regulate the use of AI to coordinate air strikes?
• What can I tell a student I am mentoring who claims: "I want to do pure mathematics because it is superior to any other subject in the world"?
• How long is a second on the moon?
• What international law did Ecuador break by storming the Mexican embassy?
• How to reconcile the teaching of Jesus to that of Paul concerning judgment?
• How to list all file in a path with absolute path and spaces in a script
• Ensuring IEEE 754 Compliance and Numerical Precision in C++ HPC Projects
• Masyu: Four Colours
• What is the optimal policy for this MDP?
• Stove plug wiring
• What happens if I use a material component of greater value than spell requires?
• What kind of alien technology would make space colonization viable?
• Why do people keep saying 'it is your responsibility' to make sure your supervisor uploads their letter of rec (or similar)?
• Is Central Limit Theorem about multiple samples or just one?
• Who was the first person to get a more accurate measure of the earth's circumference than Eratosthenes?
• Three-stage CE-CE-CC Amplifier
• How do you convey that an action is subconscious when writing in first person?
• How to determine the signs of the op-amps in this circuit?
• When providing examples, why they switch from "to Verb" to "Verbing" in this sentence?

• Home New Posts Forum List Trending New Threads New Media Spy
• WikiPost Latest summaries Watched WikiPosts
• Support FAQ and Rules Contact Us

All Safari windows do not restore from last session, macOS Ventura 13.1 bug?

• Thread starter symphony
• Start date Dec 15, 2022
• Sort by reaction score
• macOS Ventura (13)

macrumors 68020

• Dec 15, 2022

Whenever Mac shuts down or quits Safari (excluding closing a Safari window), then Safari will not restore the last session for private windows. This was not the case before, my setting opens Safari "All windows from last session", not "Non-private windows from last session". I can't tell if this is a macOS 13.1 bug, can anyone else confirm?  

russell_314

Macrumors 603.

I just did a quick test on my MacBook Air running macOS 12.6.2 Monterey and none of the Safari private windows loaded. The windows opened up but there was no website loaded. My only guess is it's a private window so it's not saving any information so it can't load information it doesn't save. To be honest I figured this would be the default behavior because if I'm opening something in a private window, it's probably something I don't want popping up when I'm restarting the computer. I can see that would make an interesting office presentation 🤣  

macrumors 65816

Seems like a feature rather than a bug. I was always surprised private windows reloaded after a quit and re-launch.  

• Dec 16, 2022

russell_314 said: I just did a quick test on my MacBook Air running macOS 12.6.2 Monterey and none of the Safari private windows loaded. The windows opened up but there was no website loaded. My only guess is it's a private window so it's not saving any information so it can't load information it doesn't save. To be honest I figured this would be the default behavior because if I'm opening something in a private window, it's probably something I don't want popping up when I'm restarting the computer. I can see that would make an interesting office presentation 🤣 Click to expand...

jk73 said: Seems like a feature rather than a bug. I was always surprised private windows reloaded after a quit and re-launch. Click to expand...

macrumors regular

• Dec 17, 2022

Private windows always restored after relaunching Safari in the past. This new option is welcome however, as one could imagine both ways making sense. I have this bug on my Intel Mac mini, but not on my M2 Air. EDIT: correction, I have this bug on the Air as well. Private tabs that I have opened with 13.0 restore after relaunch, only those opened since updating to 13.1 don't.  

ozthegweat said: Private windows always restored after relaunching Safari in the past. This new option is welcome however, as one could imagine both ways making sense. I have this bug on my Intel Mac mini, but not on my M2 Air. EDIT: correction, I have this bug on the Air as well. Private tabs that I have opened with 13.0 restore after relaunch, only those opened since updating to 13.1 don't. Click to expand...

macrumors newbie

• Feb 6, 2023

Safari Technology Preview from http://webkit.org seems to solve this problem. Thanks for helping me confirm it wasn't my imagination or an extension!  

macrumors 6502

• Mar 28, 2023

I can confirm that Safari 16.4 fixes this issue, and that when I quit Safari, Private Windows again restore correctly after relaunching Safari, as do standard ("non-private") windows. I am running macOS Monterey 12.6.4, and Safari 16.4, both downloaded as software updates this morning. It is great to have this bug resolved, and this capability back.  

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Safari will not restore tabs from previous session after closing out.

Is there any easy fix to this, preferably one that won't take me all afternoon?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 5, 2022 12:00 PM

Posted on Jun 6, 2022 9:57 AM

Hi Bobbobco,

Thanks for posting in Apple Support Communities! Here's a few options to restore closed tabs in Safari on macOS High Sierra:

See recently closed pages:  Choose History > Recently Closed. You can also choose History > Reopen Last Closed Tab or History > Reopen Last Closed Window to reopen the last tab or window you closed, or Reopen All Windows from Last Session.

These steps can be found in the article Go back to webpages you already visited in Safari on Mac .

If you've tried that and it's not working as expected, check to see if your Mac has a software update available as outdated software can cause things to not work as expected: Update macOS on Mac .

Similar questions

• Safari I had lots of tabs opened in the browser, but somehow there is only one left, that was active at the moment. Some of the tabs were pretty important and it will take A LOT of time to restore them. Is there an easy way to get them back using system options? 1361 3
• after reopen safari I can't see my last open tabs. after reopen safari I can't see my last open tabs. settings on safari: General\Safari opens with\All windows from last session 674 1
• Safari open tabs How do I get Rid of the open tabs and get the Search line back? I can’t do Anything with this new C—p safari! 252 6

Loading page content

Page content loaded

Jun 6, 2022 9:57 AM in response to Bobbobco

Jun 6, 2022 1:18 PM in response to Bobbobco

Looks like the issue was resolved for a previous user when disabling the "Close windows when quitting an application" option. You can view details here: Safari no longer allows me to reopen windows from last session

If needed, the article here can help you locate the feature: Prevent apps and windows from reopening

Should you continue to have an issue, you can test while booted to safe mode. How to use safe mode on your Mac

If the issue doesn't occur, boot normally and test. If the normal boot reproduces the issue follow the section "If the issue doesn't continue in safe mode" in the article.

Jun 6, 2022 7:06 PM in response to Bobbobco

We understand Bobbobco,

In that case, please reach out to Apple directly for further support here: Get Support

Jun 6, 2022 4:53 PM in response to OrigamiFan1

Actually what happened was that I closed Safari as it was acting unstable, therefore did not have the option regarding the "Close windows" notice. This also has happened when I have unintentionally closed Safari then tried to reopen and restore tabs. Quite frustrating.

Jun 6, 2022 5:03 PM in response to Bobbobco

We understand your frustration. Once you have closed Safari, it is not possible to recover the previously open tabs. You will need to make sure the Safari pref to open with "All windows from last session" so that in the future, Safari will open with the windows from the last session.

Jun 6, 2022 1:03 PM in response to LeleN1

Yes, of course I tried this, but Reopen All Windows from Last Session was greyed out. Even trying to open Last Closed Tab just opened my start page.

Jun 6, 2022 6:53 PM in response to jeffd55

Thank you, but I already do have my preferences set to "open with all windows from last session," but still it doesn't. Sigh.