iPad safari rearranges tabs on its own

Have you undated to 13.2.2 - released earlier this week? This update cleans-up many the serious memory management issues that has caused so many problems with Safari and other Apps.

The workaround is simply to avoid force-closing Safari. Insofar as the system/memory architecture is designed, unless Safari (or any App) is misbehaving, it should generally not be force-closed.

Contrary to popular misconception, unless the App has a memory leak, force-closing the App does not provide any tangible benefit. In fact, subsequent reload requires more battery power than simply resuming the App from its “inactive” state - a state in which all system resources used by the App have been released to the system.

Welcome the community.

This appears to be bug introduced at some point in iPadOS13.1 - that has been carried forward to 13.2. You’ll also likely find that your stored Safari Favourites are similarly and randomly re-ordered.

At present, there doesn’t appear to a be fix or workaround for these unexpected behaviours.

In your case, perhaps I can offer a suggestion...

Why don’t you separate your tab categories - and use a separate Safari window for each category. This way, you can keep all your Psychology tabs in one window, entirely separate from your Automotive tabs - and perhaps have yet another window with other tabs of interest.

Whilst this workaround will not necessarily prevent the occasional movement of a tab in relation to other tabs, this will prevent them being mixed. This also provides an opportunity the save all tabs of a specific category as group (see my referenced support paper for more details) - and is powerful use of the iPadOS Multitasking features.

Switching between Safari windows (categories) is easy - either using the Task Switcher or Exposé function.

If having difficulties with iPadOS 13 Safari and tab-management, this may be helpful to you:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250002077

Started using Firefox no rearranging. Maybe if they won’t fix it we stop using it. Maybe then they’ll listen. Hey Apple.

I’m having this same issue on my iPad Air 2 with iOS 13.3 and I’ve noticed the tabs get rearranged every time Safari is force quit and reopened. I can literally sit here, rearrange my tabs, force quit Safari, and reopen it to find them randomly rearranged again. Lather, rinse, repeat. This needs to get fixed soon. Just like others mentioned in the thread I’m a little OCD too.

2020 and several major updates later and the problem is still there. No attempt to fix it, and more attempts to blame the user than the software. This is why Apple is failing. Instead of fixing issues like this they sweep in under the rug to introduce animal emojis.

every week i have to fumble with primitive technology because it decides that my psychology tabs should be mixed up with my automotive tabs. Nothing makes my job harder than the tabs deciding to play musical chairs in the background while im writing a paper. This was an issue in IOS 11 and here we are at IOS 13. Its not the apps fault either as this happens to Chrome, Firefox, tor, and safari.

maybe apple is actually trying to give all its business to Android. I mean, why else wouldnt you fix a 2+ year old bug?

Same on 14.0.1, the latest iOS. Very annoying with 200+ tabs. Also, grouped tabs per userdefined topics would be useful - way of working is changing and flat tabs lists are from the beginning of tabs, 20 years ago. It costs me time many times per day to find the ones I need to check. At lockdown times I consider to now switch to my (MS) laptop.

Same, but for me it’s on my iphone 11 pro max.

It’s on my safari while I currently updated to IOS 13.2. Waiting for apple to fix the bug.

So, some good news. I called Apple support today and they informed me they are working on a software fix. So, let’s keep our fingers crossed that they will fix it soon.

I have the same problem unfortunately it’s even more ramped it happens every time I step away from the app even if it still working in the background and for me it’s crucial for work to have things in the right order so I end up rearranging it every time

30 something that pubs in 200 that I now have to look for. I really hope they fix this quick otherwise I’ll have to delete this version and go back.

So I’ve gotten version 13.2.3 and tabs are still being rearranged in safari. At this point, I’m considering just switching browsers, I hear firefox is okay, but if anyone has any other suggestions, I’m all ears.

I have upwards of 400 tabs, and it’s truly a pain when it reorganises by itself every day.

As I type this, in the last 24 hours it’s probably happened 4 times already!

I’ve tried to start a new series of tabs, to replicate the order I want, but if anything those will reorganise before anything else.

Nor can I just fully close the application and restart with Saved Tabs, as they won’t load every page in the background as I have to load each tab manually, and for 400 plus tabs is a very lengthy process.