Safari on your iPhone lets you open web pages in different tabs, but if you accidentally close a tab, here’s how to view recently closed tabs in Safari to get it back.
Safari is one of the best mobile web browsers on iPhone. It’s simple, but comes with all the features most users would want in a mobile browser, including bookmarks, favorites, private browsing, and the use of tabs.
Tabs allow you to open multiple web pages at the same time, and you can quickly and easily navigate back and forth between them. However, if you accidentally close a tab, it’s really not easy to get it back. On the desktop, you can just press Cmd+Shift+T (or Ctrl+Shift+T on Windows) and get back the tab you just closed.
However, there is a really easy way to get back a tab you accidentally closed in Safari on your iPhone, so don’t be afraid if you accidentally hit the Close button on a tab while browsing your device.
Here’s how to recover lost tabs in Safari when you accidentally close one.
Recover Closed Tabs in Safari
If you accidentally closed a tab while browsing Safari on your iPhone, there is an easy way to get that tab back that many users don’t know about.
Simply put, when you tap the Tab button in the bottom right corner of Safari and then press and hold the Plus icon at the bottom, this will bring up a list of recently closed tabs. Tapping one will bring that webpage back in a new tab.
Many users don’t know that you can press and hold the Plus icon, thinking it’s only there to open a new tab, in fact you can also use it to access recently closed tabs.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in Private Browsing Mode in Safari, but that’s not too surprising since other browsers don’t even let you do this on the desktop.
Of course, that’s not the only tip to know in Safari. There’s also a Reader Mode that can turn a web article into a text-only page to make it easier to read. You can activate it by visiting any article on a news site, and then a small button with multiple parallel lines should appear on the left side of the address bar. Tapping this will enable Reader Mode.
You can also save a website’s homepage as a shortcut to your iPhone’s home screen. All you have to do is open Safari and go to the website you want to save as a home screen shortcut. Tap on the Share button in the menu bar and then tap on it. On the next page you will give the shortcut a name and then tap in the top right corner to add the shortcut to your home screen.
You should also know how to delete your iPhone’s browsing history in Safari when the time comes when you might need to do this. Unless you’re in Private Browsing Mode, Safari saves all the web pages you visit and at some point you may want to delete them all.
All you have to do is open Safari and then tap the Bookmarks icon at the bottom. From there, tap the same icon upwards if it’s not already selected. This will show you your browser history and all the websites you’ve visited in Safari on your iPhone. The next step is to tap the bottom. This will bring up several options: Clear Last Time, Clear Today, Clear Today and Yesterday, and Clear All History.
