Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Safari brings itself to the front
- Thread starter revs
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wish I could. I'll be using my mac and then all of a sudden safari comes to the front. Very annoying when I'm busy typing in another app and focus moves.
Yes. Annoying as hell and has been bugging me for ages (at least through the last couple of MacOSs). It's happened at least a half-dozen times today. Never been able to figure it out. I also have 1Password, but I was guessing one of my tabs (and not necessarily the one in front) was refreshing.Does anyone else have Safari bring itself to the front without any user interaction?
I can only think maybe it's a extension issue (1Password maybe?)
Other than that I just use Wipr.
Or maybe Safari just has a bug
Take a look here Active window loses focus https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/active-window-loses-focus.2321723/post-31742015
Interesting thread, but I already know (or think I know) which process is stealing focus - it's always Safari that comes front and center. How to stop it, I wish I knew...
I haven’t tested the script posted by Brian33, but I thought it might give you a clue to what is behind Safari’s behavior, some other process/extension/functionality that is triggering the change in focus.
I always use Safari as my main browser and it never happened to bring itself to the front. So far
Any updates on this issue? It has been bothering me ever since Ventura-upgrade. Safari just randomly brings itself to the front, when I'm working in other apps. Can it be some extensions? I have 1Password, Wipr and Hush.
Only update I have is that yesterday one Safari window stole the focus from another Safari window. Since I don't often have more that one Safari window open at a time, that was new for me.
What site was that and what extensions do you have? I'm suspecting it could be an extension that does it, but it could very well be a website, such as reddit?
I have the 1Password, DuckDuckGo Privacy Dashboard/Protection, and Ka-Block extensions. As to which site it was, I'm not sure, because I think it's any of a window's open tabs that might be doing it. For example, I once had a Safari window steal focus and the front-most tab in that window was an Apple support document. I should start keeping a log of all the tabs in whatever window grabs focus. I've often suspected ESPN's website is one of them.
Any update? I also have 1Password (and Wipr)Hmm, we both have 1Password extension in common. I'm gonna diable that one and see if that helps. You should try the same
No, and I haven't been very diligent about logging the open tabs when Safari captures focus. I started to, and didn't really see any rhyme or reason to it. But you've reminded me to try again. Did disabling the 1Password extension do anything for you?
Okay, I turned off the 1Password extension and an hour later Safari grabbed focus, so it's not that. Also, the only tab I had open was my Safari Start Page. Now, I do have several tab groups defined and they have a variety of sites in them that I presume are kinda open in the background, so if it's one of those tabs then I can't see a good way of diagnosing this except to delete all my tab groups and start building them back bit by bit. Sigh.
I don't use Tab groups, so probably not that. I don't think tab groups are open in the background, that would be very inefficient. The activity Monitor also shows which tabs are 'running'
I had a blank page open, and only that while I was doing somthing, else and Safari still grabbed focus. Good to knkow it's not 1Password.
So it's either Safari Tab groups (which I also use) or Wipr, then, perhaps?
So it's either Safari Tab groups (which I also use) or Wipr, then, perhaps?
I don't know what Wipr is, so I'm guessing that's not it for me. ;-) In another day or two I'll start slowing building back my tab groups, one at a time and a few days between them.
Damnit, happened again just now. No tab groups set up yet. Frontmost of my pinned tabs was a Yahoo fantasy sports league.
Yes, I have occasionally noticed this behavior with Safari. To me it seems most related to a web page auto-reloading itself in the background. The one I had the most issues with seemed to be ESPN. Maybe it has to do with media in that page?
Wipr is an adblocker for Safari on macOS and iOS. hmm, so Wipr clearly isn't the culprit then... What about Hush? Do you have that extension installed - it's an extension to block cookie consent forms etc? But I doubt its the problem, since I think it was disabled when this problem started happening. I had high hopes it would be Safari Tab Groups, at least then we'd know why it's happening.
I'm starting to think it might just be a Safari bug in itself. I mean, like I wrote, Safari grabbed focus even with a single empty window. No webpage or anything, just one empty window!!
I also think the reason we're not hearing so much about this is the fact that
1) most people use Chrome and other browsers.
2) We might be extra sensitive to these kind of bugs / annoyances since we're nerds
No, I don't have Hush. Not really sure why there aren't more reports of this.
I have a particular Space (desktop) for Safari and I tend to do nothing else in that desktop, so when it grabs focus the desktop changes, which is quite obvious. Many users probably don't use multiple desktops, but I would imagine that Safari can also grab focus within a single one.
I have a particular Space (desktop) for Safari and I tend to do nothing else in that desktop, so when it grabs focus the desktop changes, which is quite obvious. Many users probably don't use multiple desktops, but I would imagine that Safari can also grab focus within a single one.