How to Restore Accidentally Closed Safari Tabs on iPhone

Did you accidentally close all tabs open in Safari on your iPhone? If you did, you’re not alone. Several people, including myself, have encountered this issue at least once. However, it is nothing to worry about as you can easily recover any deleted Safari tab. Read along to learn how to Restore accidentally closed Safari tabs on iPhone. 

How To Recover Deleted Safari Tabs on iPhone

Since Safari is the primary web browser for most of us, we have multiple tabs open within the browser. Some of us leave these tabs open as we need to revisit them later. Now, if you accidentally delete or close all of these tabs in Safari, do not panic. Recovering accidentally closed Safari tabs isn’t all that difficult. 

Many people accidentally close tabs and you can find several posts regarding this issue on Apple’s Discussion Community page. Therefore, to solve this issue, we’ve put together some of the best troubleshooting methods to help you recover deleted Safari tabs on your iPhone.

1. Restore Accidentally Closed Tabs from Recently Closed Tabs List in Safari 

The Safari browser on iPhone has a Recently Closed Tabs list hidden in plain sight within the browser. Not many people are aware of this feature and hence panic when they accidentally close multiple Safari tabs on their iPhones. However, we will help you navigate to the Recently Closed Tabs list and reopen all the tabs you accidentally closed on Safari. 

Once the tab opens, you can continue browsing. If you want to reopen several tabs that you accidentally closed, you will have to repeat this step multiple times. 

2. Restore Deleted Safari Tabs From Safari History

Another simple method to recover accidentally closed tabs is to restore them from History. Like most browsers, Safari also stores your browsing history in the History tab. However, note that if you accidentally closed tabs in the Private Browsing Mode, then they cannot be restored.

This is because Apple does not store browsing history for any activity in the Private Browsing Mode on iPhone. If they did, the Private Browsing Mode wouldn’t be that private. But if you’re on Mac, there’s a workaround that allows you to view Private Mode browsing history.

With that said, here’s how to recover deleted Safari tabs from Safari History on your iPhone. 

1. Open the Safari browser on your iPhone. 
2. Tap the Bookmarks icon located below the address bar. 
3. Here, tap the History tab (clock icon). 
4. Next, tap the page you want to reopen.
5. Alternatively, you can also tap and hold and then select the Open in New Tab or Open in New Tab Group option if you do not want to load the link on the current tab. 

3. Shake Your iPhone To Undo Changes and Recover Accidentally Closed Tabs in Safari 

Have you ever tried the Shake to Undo feature on your iPhone? Chances are, you have used this feature to correct typing errors. However, the Shake to Undo feature offers a lot more and can help you undo several accidental changes, including the ability to restore recently closed tabs in Safari on iPhone. 

Apart from reopening accidentally closed tabs, the Shake to Undo feature also works in other apps and services. Here are a few examples of using your iPhone’s Shake to Undo feature.

• Creating, editing, renaming, or deleting files or folders in the Files app. 
• Creating, editing, or deleting events in the Calendar app.
• Editing or deleting images or videos in the Photos app.
• Rearranging apps and widgets on the Home Screen.

We understand that this feature might be helpful you right now. Because a few minutes must’ve passed since you accidentally closed these tabs. Regardless, it might come in handy in the near future. Therefore, here’s how to use the Shake to Undo feature to restore accidentally closed tabs in Safari on iPhone. 

1. The moment you accidentally close Safari tabs, quickly shake your iPhone. We suggest using the hammering motion as that is what seems to work for us. 
2. The iPhone will display an Undo Close Tab pop-up. Tap the Undo button. 
3. The closed tab will be restored and you can continue browsing. 

If the Shake to Undo feature is not working on your iPhone, you might have accidentally disabled it. Here’s how to enable the Shake to Undo feature on iPhone. 

1. Open the Settings app and tap the Accessibility option. 
2. Select the Touch option located under the Physical and Motor menu. 
3. On the next screen, enable the Shake to Undo toggle. 

Prevent Accidentally Closing Safari Tabs 

Why do you have multiple tabs open in Safari? Mostly, it might be because you visit those sites often and do not want to search for them every single time. However, navigating through hundreds of tabs to revisit a website isn’t very easy. While doing so, you might accidentally close all of the open tabs too. 

Therefore, in order to prevent accidentally closing Safari tabs on iPhone, we suggest bookmarking tabs you visit frequently. This will streamline the entire process of navigating websites you visit often and in turn save time. Here’s how to bookmark tabs in Safari on your iPhone. 

1. Open the Safari browser on your iPhone. 
2. Head to the website you want to bookmark.
3. Now, tap and hold on the Bookmark icon below the address bar. 
4. If you visit this website regularly to read from it, tap the Add to Reading List option. Or else, tap the Add Bookmark option. 
   
5. On the next screen, you can edit the Name and the Link of the website. 
6. If you want to change the location of the Bookmark, tap the option below Location and select the Bookmark Folder of your choice. 
7. After you make all the required changes, tap the Save button at the top right corner. 
   

Conclusion 

We hope you were able to restore all the accidentally closed Safari tabs on your iPhone. I can completely relate to your pain of losing all the open tabs. It has happened to me in the past too. If you have any other doubts or are aware of other methods that can help restore accidentally deleted tabs in Safari, please let us know in the comments below.