How to close Safari windows on iPad iOS 15

This answer is not helpful. But thank you.

I am embarrassed to say that I find myself avoiding my iPad because I find these nine or more windows at the bottom of the Safari page so incredibly annoying — even though they disappear after a certain point, only to return.

I may have stumbled on how to get rid of the windows. I am not tech savvy by any means. Open safari, go to the left corner setting with the screen icon and tap it. You should see Safari, start page, private, etc. select either start page or private. Tap the 4 little squares to open the view and minimize all pages. In the right corner you will see done. Hold your finger on the done and a window will appear. You can select which function you want to do. My picture will only show 2 since I already cleared all my open window. Click merge windows. You should have all windows showing and then click the X in the corner to eliminate them. You might have to open safari and select another window and repeat the process several times. The open windows should start to disappear until you have just 1. Hope it helps.

When the icons appear at the bottom of the screen simply touch one and drag it up to the top and it will disappear.

Having updated to iPadOS15, you have now encountered the “Shelf” - this being a new feature of the now revised iPadOS multitasking environment. 

iPadOS permits you to have multiple “instances” of the same App - each instance being self contained. The shelf, when triggered, shows a thumbnail of each running instance of an App. 

For example, if you have three running instances of Safari, each with its own set of open tabs, you will see three thumbnails corresponding to each running instance of Safari - plus a button to open a new instance of Safari. Simply tapping a thumbnail will switch directly to that running instance of Safari. Each App - such as Mail, Safari, Notes, Calendar, etc. - has its own corresponding shelf.

Individual open instances of an App can be closed directly from the Shelf; just swipe the unwanted thumbnail off the top of the screen. Note, however, that Multitasking and associated Shelf functions cannot be disabled.

This article from Appleinsider has a useful explanation of this new feature along with many of the updates to multitasking:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/08/12/how-to-master-multitasking-on-ipad-and-ipad-pro-in-ipados-15

The iPad User Guide is also a rich source of frequently overlooked information. The Guide is available both online using a web browser (such as Safari), or as an Apple Books download:

iPad User Guide - Apple Support

https://books.apple.com/book/id1567104892

My solution was:

From Home Screen slide your fingers halfway up. This will make all your open Apps appear.

You may be shocked at all the open apps hiding in the background.

Slide each App up toward the end of the screen to close them.

I found this out because my iPad Air 4th was VERY slow and the advice was to close open Apps.

While I was at it I placed a Virtual Home Button Icon to use from the Accessibility Settings.

(The iPad Air doesn’t have a physical Home button.) Now I can function in peace.

My wife has several windows which are hidden unless you tap the tiled icon toward the lower left. Then about ten of them appear. Again, no idea how to permenently delete them,sure tap anywhere and they are hidden for the moment, These are in the email application. Please help, my wife is blaming them on me (not an apple user) thanks..

Mike

Hi JLT1024,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. It sounds like you have some questions about Safari settings on your iPad. We're happy to provide some information to assist.

When using the Split View feature in Safari, you can merge all pages and then close the tabs to prevent seeing the open views at the bottom of the page. The details near the bottom of the article here can help: Use split screen in Safari on your iPad

Once all open start page tabs are merged, close as normal. If needed, the guide page here has the steps for closing tabs. Use tabs in Safari on iPad

You can also change what your start page(s) open with the the steps here: Customize your Safari settings on iPad

Best!

Exactly. I hadn’t read this before I posted

I figured it out. Go to show all windows where all the windows that were on the bottom of the screen take up the full screen and just swipe up manually and they will disappear individually.

This reply refers to tabs and split view. THe original question like mine, is deleting the small windows NOT tabs. They’re still there like in the photo above.

“:

I tried deleting history all and all those previous windows are still at the bottom. There are too many to count. ??????

Me too! They are so annoying! Please Support provide a solution!

Brilliant, I can’t understand why Apple don’t have this sort of info themselves I am so grateful to get rid of the annoying little devils!

Thank You, it worked just like you said. My ADD appreciates you.

The open email boxes at bottom of page are incredibly annoying! Please remove in next update.