icloud tabs are not syncing in big sur

Actually working again on all devices :)

Same problem here. I have a case open with Apple about it, and I worked with a support tech yesterday. iCloud Bookmarks sync is working fine, but iCloud tabs is badly broken. There's also this forum on MacRumors:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/icloud-tabs-not-syncing.2266397/

I suggest that everyone ping Apple Support on Twitter with this issue and raise this with them. They really need to go to the iCloud engineering team to get this sorted. I prefer to use Safari on my Apple devices, but it's troubling that they can't seem to keep this feature working.

alonewitheverybody wrote:

For me, the syncing is intermittent. Sometimes, the tabs in iPhone and Ipad appears in my iMac and sometimes, it just empty. However, like just now, there is sync from tabs in iMac to my Ipad but not iPhone. This is so frustrating.

This is exactly the behavior I'm experiencing as well. After a few hours, all of my devices will be in sync. Once I start closing tabs on any of my devices, things start getting funky and randomly disappear.

For now, I'm switching over to Firefox. It works on all platforms (I use macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Windows 10 every day), the cloud services always work, there are more extensions and themes available, and if you go into about:config, there are tons of other customization options. I know that it doesn't perform as well in benchmarks as Safari or Chrome or Edge, but in actual use, you really cannot see any of this. They've also made great strides in battery life since v70 (https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/).

Thanks, that saves me having to report it, which can be time-consuming.

Here's a workaround for some people: if iClouds tabs show on your phone, open it on your phone, then air drop it to your Mac. Not as convenient, but can get you out of a jam.

For everyone looking at switching browsers, give the new Firefox a whirl. They have made huge strides in performance on the Mac, and it's now M1 native as well. They are very user centric when it comes to privacy, and there are tons of tweaks available in about:config. Oh, and tab/history syncing always works.

I ran the SpeedTest benchmark yesterday on my new M1 Mac, and it's neck and neck with Chrome while using less CPU and RAM on your Mac. Safari is still the fastest, which is expected given it's close development with the OS team at Apple, but Firefox is a great browser that's worth a look.

Lastly, be sure to check out https://chromeisbad.com for tips on why and how to remove Chrome from your Mac, when you're ready.

Tabs worked briefly but then there was a Safari update14.0.2 and now things are back to not-syncing. Not sure if the Safari update broke things but it's a interesting coincidence that right after the update I couldn't see the tabs from my iPhone or iPad and I was able to before that.

Its a plus 1 from me......

My cloud tabs were spurious since Big (bug!?) sur, I have 4 devices, iMac, MacBook, iPhone 12 and iPad pro.

The iMac stopped syncing, and then the iPad pro, strangely up until today the MacBook and iPhone 12 were still "ok".

Until I called apple, they got me to do all the normal stuff of signing out, unticking cloud sync etc and now, no device syncs the tabs :(

They say they are aware of the issue, but this has been over a month now :/

same here! none of the 'usual suspects' in fixing this shows effect.

Same here :-(

same issue here and I have not updated to Big Sur, so believe this is an iCloud issue given other devices are erratically behaving incorrectly, outdated or blank tab data as well

Same here