Safari keeps opening up to first tab on iPhone

yes!!! This is happening to me too and I absolutely hate it. Whenever I open safari on my iPhone12, it’s opening up my first tab by default rather than my latest tab. I can’t seem to find a fix for this. It’s super annoying and I can see that others are experiencing this too and are equally frustrated.

@Apple you need to fix this!!

Same issues with my safari… sure would be nice if apple could reply with a solution. It truly is so annoying to have to scroll down 100’s of tabs, every time I want to get to the last tab I had used..

No solutions so far that will work (in the end).

The only workaround for me is still:

• Goto the tabs view (two square icons)
• Open a new tab (+ icon)
• Goto the tabs view again
• Delete the new tab

That brings me to the end of my latest tabs.

Hello Safaritabissue,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

We understand that Safari on your iPhone is opening to the first tab instead of the most recent tab used. You would like it to open to the most recent tab as it used to. We would recommend starting by reviewing the following article: Set up and use iCloud Tabs.

If you continue to have issues, you may need to Clear the history and cookies from Safari on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Keep in mind that this action would clear all Safari browsing history from your device and would have to be recreated afterwards.

Best regards.

Same, I like to keep important tabs up so end up having around 100 tabs open in safari (personal choice), it’s very inconvenient to have to keep opening up an old tab and having to go through the effort of opening a new tab just to get to my most recent tabs. Not at all user friendly. I hate to be THAT person but it’s all these little irritating things that tempt me to switching to android. Hopefully there is a solution.

Found this on reddit and it helped so far!

"I found a solution to this! Go to settings>Safari>downloads. If it says ICloud, then the problem happens because it’s deleting tabs after it uploads them. Click on ICloud and change it to my Iphone. Then below that, it asks “Delete downloaded items” and choose “manually. “ This fixed the problem for me.

Also make sure that under Safari, Tabs section that you choose to close them manually.

I hope this helps!!"

I’m still in the same boat. Even if they don’t have a fix it would be nice for them to simply say so, apologize, and possibly address it in a future update. It’s completely illogical. If they allow up to 500 tabs, it’s quite obvious that anyone using dozens of tabs are willing to scroll backward to see what they saved for future reference. But to scroll forward (with extreme lag) to see a page opened 5 minutes ago is ridiculous. I’ve even had it crash scrolling through to the most recent. Yes I know the trick to open a new page and then go to tabs but even then it still ends up quite often deleting the most recent, seemingly at random. I could look up a recipe then 5 mins later look up a dictionary definition in a new tab, then 10 mins later I want to see the recipe and the tab is completely gone. Not overwritten with something, just gone like I never opened it.

Here’s what I did to fix it:

• Go to Settings
• Scroll all the way down to Safari and click on it
• Once you click on it go to the Search options and check if you have the option “Preload Top Hit” turned on.
• If you do make sure to turn it off and you should be good to go

Does not work. I have four same tabs which opens whatever I do. Also private tabs with some windows, when I delete ALL of them and I reopen Safari all Private tabs are there again.

What I've tried:

• deleted cookies, settings
• Screentime on/off
• Unsync/sync iCloud
• delete all tabs, over and over again
• switched nearby all settings in
• -----> Prefs -> Safari or
• -----> Prefs -> iCloud as well
• -----> each setting in Safari

Here is a video how it looks like

-----> https://www.veed.io/view/0c801069-a683-4e35-89b4-4f3668295cfe

Fix this please

I have the exact same issue. Started with the last iOS update and nothing helps. At the same time tabs I closed multiple times just reappear once I open safari again after a few minutes. Very annoying

This worked for me:

1- open Settings

2- scroll down to Safari and select

3- scroll down to Tabs

I had single tab selected.

4- Change selection to Tab Bar.

5- Close and reopen Safari (it opened correctly to the last page/tab viewed)

6- Continue in Settings/Safari/Tabs and change back to single tab

7- Close and reopen Safari

My results don’t seem to be consistent either. Can’t tell if it’s a timing issue. Seems to have worked for a while - but the next day, starting Safari again, went to first tab. Only after the first time manually selecting or creating new tab, Safari retains that following a restart. But not sure for how long.

Feb 10, that’s when this user reported this issue, an issue that has been driving me insane, but for which I just assumed there was a new setting someplace that I was too lazy to find. Feb 10. Two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, which feels like a long, long time ago. BECAUSE IT IS. Apple has not provided any helpful answer or fix for a super irritating issue, involving their own application, which millions of people use multiple times a day, every day. FIX THIS!!!!!

I am having the same issue and also my recently opened tabs disappear and tabs I have already closed, reopen. This started happening after the last iOS update. I closed all of my tabs which seemed to help but now that I have about 100 tabs open, it’s happening again. It’s extremely annoying!

I also have the same issue for the last few months! So frustrating. Can’t believe there have been no responses. Could it be related to the model you have? my husband and I have diffenent iPhones and he doesn’t have this problem. Either way, they should still advise how to fix the bug.