Learn how to set Safari to automatically close open tabs after a day, week, or month on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac so that your web browser is not unnecessarily burdened with old, useless tabs.
Several open tabs can slow down Safari and eat up precious system resources. The issue is exacerbated if you set Safari to open all links in new tabs, leaving you with a bunch of tabs that you probably don’t even know are open.
In order to prevent that from happening, many people manually close their open tabs, but the problem is you have to remember to do that in the first place. Thankfully, Safari has the ability to automatically close all open tabs after a specific period of time, but you must first enable it in settings.
On iPhone and iPad
1) Open iOS Settings and tap Apps from the bottom of the screen.
2) Choose Safari from the list of all applications.
3) Tap Close Tabs underneath the Tabs heading, and choose how you want Safari to automatically close tabs:
- Manually: Safari won’t automatically close tabs. This is the default setting.
- After One Day: All open tabs will be cleared after 24 hours.
- After One Week: All open tabs will be cleared after a week.
- After One Month: All open tabs will be cleared after a month.
On Mac
1) Open Safari on your Mac, running a recent version of macOS. Then, click Safari > Settings from the top menu bar to access your browser preferences.
2) Go to the Tabs section.
3) Click the drop-down menu next to ‘Automatically close tabs’ and choose After one day, After one week, or After one month.
Whenever I visit my parents and use their iPad, I’m completely flabbergasted by the sheer number of open tabs they have in Safari without even realizing it. Try as I might, my Mom just couldn’t be bothered to grasp the concept of tabbed browsing. Me being nitpicky, I couldn’t stand the sight of dozens upon dozens of open tabs, so what I’d do is close them manually in order to make Safari more responsive and easier to navigate. With this handy setting, I have just set her device to auto-close all open tabs each and every day, and it’s one less thing to worry about!
Other useful Safari tips: