How do I stop Safari from opening up multiple unwanted bookmark tabs?

I was asking this and could not find an answer. But this solution I tried seemed to work and would like to know if it works for anyone else with this real annoying issue.

The problem. Safari on restart would open up huge numbers of tabs that I had not been using in the last session. I typically had two windows open. When I restarted my Macbook Pro all of my last sessions' tabs would open (which is what I wanted), but to the right of these tabs were 64 other tabs (That I definitely didn;t want) The same 64 tabs were in each and every window that opened!

These tabs were all my "Favourites" bookmarks. (Needless to say they were no longer my favourites after multiple attempts to stop it from happening.)

All the advice in various forums didn't solve the problem but this did for some reason - despite it looking like it had nothing to do with the problem:

1. Open Safari.
2. In the menu bar at the top of the screen, click on "Safari."
3. In the drop-down menu, select "Preferences."
4. In the Preferences window, click on the "General" tab.
5. Look for the option labelled "Safari opens with:"
6. Select "All windows from last session" from the drop-down menu if you want it to do that.
7. Now, this is the important bit below that, find the option labelled "New windows open with:".
8. Select "Homepage" from the drop-down menu (I didn't try Empty Page but you can try that too).
9. Look for the option labeled "New tabs open with:".
10. Select "Homepage" or "Empty Page" from the dropdown menu, depending on your preference. I went for Homepage. This will prevent your bookmarks from automatically opening in new tabs.
11. (If you do select "Homepage," make sure your homepage doesn't include any of your bookmarks.)
12. Close the Preferences window.

With these settings, Safari will open with all tabs from the last session but will only open your homepage when you open a new window. This should prevent all the extra tabs from opening every time you restart Safari.

I hope that helps. Please let me know if it worked for you!