Switch to MRU tab with shortcut or gesture

Question

Level 6

12,582 points

Switch to MRU tab with shortcut or gesture

Hi. Is there any way to navigate to the most-recently-used tab by way of a shortcut or a gesture?

I am looking for the Safari application-specific equivalent of the OS X's "{Command}+{apostrophe}" shortcut that switches to the most-recently-used active program window.

Being able to step through the entire MRU list of tabs by repeatedly typing part of the shortcut (as with the OS X shortcut for application window switching) would be excellent.

I am more than happy to write a macro and bind it to a shortcut if needed.

TIA. This is the largest and most frequently hit speedbump in my computer use.

Kirby.

10.6.8, soon to jump to 10.7.x

MacBook Pro 13, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 8 G / 500 G internal / 5 TB external / NEC 2490 / ColorMunki Pho

Posted on Dec 27, 2011 8:32 AM

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Answer 1

andrit

Level 1

4 points

Feb 12, 2014 2:38 AM in response to Kirby Krieger

Hi Kirby,

you may want to try this extension - mru-tabs-switch. I wrote it for mylself (since could not find anything similar) and it works pretty well for me. Switch by Control+1.

Regards,

Andriy

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Answer 2

drffc

Level 1

28 points

May 22, 2014 9:16 AM in response to andrit

Does your extension work with Mavericks?

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Answer 3

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

May 22, 2014 9:44 AM in response to drffc

http://canisbos.com/taboptions may do

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Answer 4

andrit

Level 1

4 points

Jun 11, 2014 1:39 AM in response to drffc

Yes, mru-tabs-switch does work with Mavericks.

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Answer 5

ekruB

Level 1

8 points

Feb 10, 2016 7:14 AM in response to Kirby Krieger

FYI – it may be nearly 5 years later, but I recently made a simple copy of Chrome's Tab Stack extension for Safari: Tab Stack for Safari. It's not going to please everyone, but for folks (like me) who were used to Tab Stack on Chrome as an MRU solution, it's a usable option. Basically, it moves the active tab to the front (left) after a brief delay. This has the effect of sorting your tabs, keeping the most recently tabs on the left. The (configurable) brief delay allows you to scan through tabs without changing the order. The benefit is having a simple solution that sorts tabs without any special hotkeys or messing around with Safari's tab handling. People who don't like their tabs moving around won't care for Tab Stack and can look elsewhere for an MRU solution for Safari.

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Answer 6

necktwi

Level 1

21 points

Mar 29, 2016 9:28 PM in response to ekruB

This is awesome. If you sort the tabs only after you release the control key they it will be complete. Can you do that?

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Answer 7

kwadz.fr

Level 1

4 points

Sep 9, 2016 3:02 PM in response to ekruB

It's never too late to do the right thing. Even if it's not fully satisfactory, this is an amazing workaround! It's a shame that Apple is not able to do anything about a MRU option (while all other browser have the option). Thank you ekruB.

Could I suggest an improvement?

When there is a lot of tabs, the scrollable bar of tabs shows the tabs on the far right and reduce the tabs on the left, it would be better to scroll it on the left.

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Answer 8

Eric Root

Level 10

684,033 points

Sep 10, 2016 6:32 AM in response to kwadz.fr

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for improvement. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

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Answer 9

necktwi

Level 1

21 points

Mar 18, 2017 11:54 AM in response to Kirby Krieger

http://www.ferryfair.com/crontab/CronTab-1.7_8.safariextz will do it
<I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.>

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