Mac safari tabs won't stay closed

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Mac safari tabs won't stay closed

I have several tab groups that should sync across my Mac (Monterey 12.1/Safari 15.2), my phone, and my iPad. They seem to behave normally on the mobile devices but I can't seem to close tabs in several of my tab groups on the Mac. If I click on the x they go away then just pop back open in a few seconds.

If I close the same tabs on one of the mobile devices they seem to close and stay closed on that device but that doesn't sync back to the Mac.

I've tried Develop>Empty Caches in Safari and have tried closing Safari and re-opening it. Neither makes any difference. Any suggestions?

MacBook Air (2020 or later)

Posted on Feb 9, 2022 5:49 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

karina184

Community Specialist

Feb 10, 2022 8:02 AM in response to dennyAtk

Hello dennyAtk,

Apple Support Communities is a great place for help with iCloud Tabs on your Mac. It sounds as though you’re having a couple of issues. The first being that when a tab is closed on your iPhone or iPad, it remains on your Mac unexpectedly, and the second issue is when closing a tab on your Mac it returns. To clarify, when you close the tab on your Mac, does it close on your iPhone and iPad as expected? If not, this may be a contributing factor as to why the tabs return.

You mentioned running macOS Monterey 12.1. There has been a macOS Update released since that version and updating is a recommended troubleshooting step for the issue you’re facing. If you need to reference the steps for updating macOS, they can be found in the following article.

Update macOS on Mac

In addition to updating maOS, it is recommended to update iOS and iPadOS on your other devices. Those steps can be found in the article below.

Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Let us know how that goes!

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Answer 2

dennyAtk Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 10, 2022 11:42 AM in response to karina184

karina184 asked: "To clarify, when you close the tab on your Mac, does it close on your iPhone and iPad as expected?"

They do not. The Mac tabs reopen almost instantly (within 5 to 10 seconds). I doubt that there is time for them to sync. There are 67 tabs open in one of the tab groups on the Mac…the iPhone and iPad each show 25 for the corresponding tab group. I suspect there may be some javascript foolish afoot, but I can't figure out how to deal with it if there is.

Both the iPad and iPhone are at the latest update. I will update the Mac as you suggest and I'll report back later today.

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Answer 3

dennyAtk Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 10, 2022 12:44 PM in response to dennyAtk

Updating to Monterey 12.2 resolved the issue. It seems to have taken a rather aggressive approach…it closed all but 1 tab in the troublesome tab group. I don't recall having tried to close all 65 tabs earlier, but it is possible I had and Safari may have just queued all of those closings. Once I updated the OS, 64 of the 65 tabs in the group went away. That works for me.

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Mac safari tabs won't stay closed

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