Safari search bar fixed at bottom in iOS 26.3.1?

Does everyone know that the search bar in safari is always going to remain at the bottom? Apple have confirmed that their settings to move it compact, bottom and top are now redundant and it will always remain at the bottom from now on using iOS 26.3.1

Posted on Mar 14, 2026 4:57 PM

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Posted on Mar 14, 2026 7:10 PM

One has to wonder who's answering questions at Apple these days. Settings > Apps > Safari > Tabs > choose whatever you want. The effect is instantaneous.


If that does not work for you, LD150 posted a suggestion for a similar problem here.

4 replies

Mar 15, 2026 12:53 AM in response to 6x6

I migrated from IOS 18.7 to 26.3.1 which I really don’t like anyway. It sounds daft as it’s only a search bar but I spent hours doing all the suggestions on google and on the apple support community pages and nothing works. I have the iPhone 15 pro max,for example I’ve tried turning on and off motion controls,compact select force restart,top select force restart and yes I had closed safari and settings first. I’ve literally spent all yesterday afternoon,I even tried going back to my old saved iOS 18.7 backup which failed and caused loads of problems with the apps and I forgot to save photos and important information in notes. Literally nothing works so I contacted apple as a last resort and this is what they said

Mar 15, 2026 1:07 AM in response to Cypher96

Sorry and yes I’ve tried all that as well John Galt but thank you for the suggestion. I did think that was odd from Apple too as to start with they wanted me to go through all of the suggestions I had already tried. Its very odd and a bit frustrating as I prefer safari over chrome but I will just use chrome from now on instead and also make this the last Apple product I buy as I don’t appreciate being lied to by Apple who evidently couldn’t be bothered to help.

Safari search bar fixed at bottom in iOS 26.3.1?

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