What is the difference between Unpinning and Closing a pinned tab in Safari 9.0

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Level 2

241 points

What is the difference between Unpinning and Closing a pinned tab in Safari 9.0

OS X El Capitan - Safari 9.0: I am trying to understand the difference between the Close Tab and Unpin Tab options when I right click (ctrl-click) a pinned tab in the tab bar. Both options appear to close and unpin the tab. I don't see any difference in the behavior of either option. If I drag a pinned tab to the right - it unpins the tab and leaves the page open in a normal tab. I have attempted to google the close vs unpin option and I am not finding any definitive results.

~Scott

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 14, 2015 11:38 AM

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Answer 1

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Oct 15, 2015 6:42 AM in response to SBeattie2

Hi SBeattie2,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!

I understand that you are looking for information on the difference between closing an open tab and unpinning a tab in Safari 9.0.

Pinned Sites stay in place and never move. The Pinned Site always shows the website that you pinned. When you close a pinned site by right clicking as you say, it closes the pin as if it was a Safari tab. However if you select Unpin Tab, then it will close the pin and go back to a standard Safari tab. When you close a Safari tab, you are closing that entire Safari page attached to that tab.

The difference between Pinned Sites and tabs as well as information on how to pin and unpin a website are discussed in more information in the following article.

Pin frequently visited websites - Safari Help

Best!

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Answer 2

SBeattie2 Author

Level 2

241 points

Oct 15, 2015 12:04 PM in response to AppleJoe

Joe - Thank you for the explanation. Strangely - today - it appears to be working as you have stated - close will close and unpin the page - unpin reverts the page back to a normal tab and unpins the page. Yesterday (my first use of pinning) - both the close and unpin options were closing and unpinning the page - thus I was not seeing any difference in the behavior of the two options. I can only assume that this was some type of glitch related to first use or something that a reboot corrected. Unfortunately I have rebooted all of my Macs and I am unable to replicate this "first time" behavior on my other Macs. All are working.

~Scott

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