safari deleting my tabs! Why?

I understand your frustration, but it may just be worth re-iterating that Safari received a major functional update that fundamentally changed the way that many features work. These changes, particularly those that now allow multiple independent Safari “spaces” (i.e., “instances”) to simultaneously exist, often makes end-users believe that their open tabs have unexpectedly closed.

To see all current open “spaces”, whilst Safari is the running process, simply swipe-up from the bottom of the screen - just enough to reveal the dock at the bottom of the screen; don’t swipe-up to the middle of the screen and pause, as this will invoke the Task Switcher.

While the Dock is displayed over the top of Safari, touch the Safari icon on the Dock; doing so will now show you all the running Safari “spaces” (instances) - and you can switch between them just by touching the associated icon. Each “space” is independent of the others - and has its own set of open tabs. (NB: You can also find all the open Safari “spaces” in the Task Switcher - but they will appear along with all the other open Apps)

Here is a simple workflow that shows you how to save and restore a complete Safari “space” to your Favourites...

Save Session

When you are taking a break from your session, you can easily save your all the open tabs for this session in a single step. To do so, touch-and-hold the book icon to the left of the address bar, and from the menu that appears choose the second option - Add Bookmarks for n Tabs (where n = the number of open tabs in this Safari window/instance); a New Folder dialogue will appear - give it a suitable name - and Save.

Close your window if you wish - or just treat this as saving where you are so far. Saving the state of the window not only saves all your open tabs, but also saves the entire history of each tab as well!

Restore Session

To restore a saved session, with a Safari window open (any window will do), open a new window; a page will appear with all your saved Favourites shown as individual icons. You will notice that your page of favourites includes one or more grouped sets of thumbnail icons (i.e., folders), one or more of which will have the folder name that you chose in the step above.

Touch-and-hold the folder icon that corresponds with the session that you wish to restore - the folder will expand and show an actions menu; choose the second option Open in New Tabs.

Now, all the tabs (and associated tab histories) will open in the new Safari Window - just as they were when you saved them. The new Safari window, with restored tabs, can be manipulated just like any other Safari window within iPadOS.

You can have as many saved sessions/folders as you like - all with unique names. So you could, for example, save your research project at various stages or times - ready for immediate recall at will. This save/restore process is very powerful - and is completely independent of the other mechanisms within Safari to restore closed windows or individual tabs. The saved sessions will persist and be synchronised with iCloud, like any other saved Favourite, until such time as you delete them.

I use this simple mechanism all the time - to manage individual (open) browsing sessions between, work, research and domestic - easily switching between them as needed. This process also protects you from the frustrations of an accidentally closed Safari window (or multiple windows).

I hope you find these tips helpful in introducing some of the new features - and, perhaps, resolving some of your usability issues.

Hi websmile2003,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities! It's my understanding that your Safari tabs are closing out unexpectedly. I am happy to help.

Let's first explore your Safari settings. Please navigate to Settings > Safari. From here, please swipe up to scroll down to 'Close Tabs'. Make sure this is set to your preference being 'Manually' or after a specific time listed. Safari will then follow that rule as to when to close tabs in Safari.

When it comes to restoring closed tabs in Safari, you can touch and hold the New Tab (+) button, then choose from the list of recently closed tabs. You can find more details about using tabs in Safari here: Use tabs in Safari on iPhone - Apple Support.

Thank you for your post!

Take care.

This response isn’t helpful. I have the same problem. Most of the tabs I had open in Safari closed after the update. It looks like the only ones that are still open are from the previous 24 hours. The closed tabs have completely disappeared. They’re not in recently closed tabs. Apple support hasn’t been very responsive, but they did tell me that it can be restored from iCloud backup, but of course I don’t have a recent backup.

I’m really disappointed in Apple. This update is so bad, and I can’t get help from Apple support. I probably won’t buy any more Apple products, because I don’t need this much stress.

Exact same problem here on iPad. All tabs closed, nothing in recently closed tabs. Curiously I can see them on my iPhone as open tabs on my iPad alongside my newly opened tabs I can still see on iPad. So much for ‘it just works’

Am having same problem and it makes no difference on how Safari is set about deleting tabs. It appears that the programmers at Apple have no clue on solving this problem. Maybe will have to switch back to a Microsoft product seeing as how this switch to Apple products has only enabled them to get too big to care about their customers.

I feel your frustration - but you are aware that everyone here are just end-users, just like you? There are no Apple Engineers here.

Apple do not participate, comment, or otherwise involve themselves in these community forums.

I’m really sick of it. While on the subject of things driving me crazy, I have a tempered glass protector in perfect condition on top of an apple screen that is cracked beneath it after 105 days.

think I’m going back to Microsoft too. Apple is supposed to be better service with a higher quality product. Turns out that’s just not true.

I have safari set for manually closing tabs but it has mutinied and closes them all ROUTINELY thus driving me crazy. What is wrong with your engineers?!

Thank you LotusPilot - that was exactly my problem. I haven’t yet tried to use the different sessions, but I shall do.

Thanks for such a thorough explanation!