iCloud Tabs Only Partially Working

Question

iCloud Tabs Only Partially Working

For the longest, my iCloud tabs would only work from iOS to OS X. For instance, I could see the opened tabs on my MacBook from my iPhone and iPad, but not vice versa. However, out of the clear blue sky tonight, I can see my opened tabs from my iPad on my MacBook when I click "iCloud Tabs" and "Show All Tabs", but I can't see the opened tabs of my iPhone. Still following me? Apple touts that both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the same connection are needed to be enabled for this feature to work, but at the time, I only had my Wi-Fi connected to my devices and they were on different networks. I now have all three connected to the same Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are all turned on, but I can still only see my iPad tabs on my Mac but not my iPhone tabs.

Haven't downloaded anything or tweaked anything on my Mac and have only downloaded a few entertainment apps on both iPhone and iPad. Anyone else with this problem and know a work around to help out?

My iPad where I can see the opened tabs of my Mac but not my iPhone

My iPhone where I can see the tabs on my Macbook and now my iPad

The tabs I can see on my iPad from my Macbook but not my iPhone

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 6, 2016 12:08 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 11, 2017 3:30 PM in response to theapplemacgirl

Okay, so I got the tabs to finally work. Now, this is what I did, so I thought I'd share in an effort to help.

I signed out of iCloud on every device I possibly use and backed up the book marks on my main device.

I then chose to delete all data associated with the safari app upon iCloud sign out.

I then deleted all history and cache/cookie type of stuff. Everything (I did this multiple ways and this is what I had to do).

Then, everything got rebooted.

Permissions repaired on the Macs, then I did another reboot on all of them (that second reboot was probably unnecessary).

I then picked my "main Mac" and sign into iCloud on, let it sync for a while, I opened Safari, surfed to 3 pages in three tabs, let it sit for 10 minutes while I unloaded my dishwasher and I then closed Safari.

Closing Safari is important. If you don't, then it gets stuck in it's before sync state.

I then did the same on all the other devices; I signed in, let it sync, went to a few pages, let it sit, and then closed Safari.

Upon opening Safari the second time on my Mac about an hour later and surfing to a few pages in tabs, I now got the same iCloud tabs screen when "showing all tabs" as before on my iPhone in terms of tabs, but now touching the tabs on the other device worked.

It's was a little systematic, but after a few tries of doing EVERYTHING as I explained, it worked for me.

It's an iCloud sync thing. Showing the tabs, and making them "live" for opening are obviously 2 different software level things. iCloud isn't just giving us the web address as a tab. There must be another layer to it. This is my experience. Hopefully it helps.

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