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iPhone Why do all safari tabs just sometimes disappear and are gone?

T

tivoboy

macrumors 601
Original poster
May 15, 2005
4,062
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I’ve had this issue a couple times, and can’t figure out what the common element is, but sometimes (often after for some reason I have either opened in split screen, or put a safari window inadvertently in the side slide out), but then a window with MANY tabs will just be done. Can’t find it anywhere, all I have left is the one window with one tab, useless. I can’t figure out anyway to get BACK the window I had open with what is often 100+ tabs that I WANTED to save.

Is there A) any way to find these again (other than going through all history) B) any way to stop this behavior from happening?
 
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I’m getting this a lot since upgrading to iOS13. I don’t know why it’s happening, but a new window has opened, and I can only find the old tabs by double clicking the home button to access everything open, then guessing which is the right window to click on (it’s not always obvious in the smaller images shown). I don’t know how to turn this annoying feature off. iPadOS seems another step down in usability.
 
Sadly I don’t see any other open windows, even with doubling clicking home or swiping up from bottom. Trying to swipe in from right doesn’t show anything else either. They really just seem gone, which is pretty annoying.
 
tivoboy said:
I can’t figure out anyway to get BACK the window I had open with what is often 100+ tabs that I WANTED to save.
Click to expand...
100+ tabs... seriously? Tabs = memory usage = battery drain = performance degradation.
My unwanted personal opinion aside. Check Safari Close Tabs:
Settings > Safari > Tabs > Close Tabs = Manually
Ensure that you do not have it auto closing tabs after a day, week, month.
 
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960design said:
100+ tabs... seriously? Tabs = memory usage = battery drain = performance degradation.
My unwanted personal opinion aside. Check Safari Close Tabs:
Settings > Safari > Tabs > Close Tabs = Manually
Ensure that you do not have it auto closing tabs after a day, week, month.
Click to expand...
normally I have really no performance or battery problem with even 450 tabs open. I know I WANT to get that down to much lower, but i'll have 400+ tabs open for many many months if not years.
 
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This happens to me intermittently / semi regularly since iOS 11. It is incredibly frustrating and to make it even more frustrating I use to split my tabs between normal and private mode so I could have a setup similar to having two safari windows - one for frequent use tabs and the other for longer term.

The reason I did this is because my entire reading list would constantly disappear with no way to get anything back. Even with iCloud on all was lost and turning off iCloud did not resolve the issue either.

Also for anyone reading this topic - on a side note, make sure you don’t clear website data in settings when tabs are open as this will clear all your tabs.
 
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I’m so getting sick of this. I had about 50 tabs opened with stuff I was going to read and just came into my iPad, which I use daily and ALL of them are gone again.

I havent’ done anything, the safari preferences is set to manual close only, and I haven’t deleted the cache or cookies in settings. Everything just gone and one open window.
 
Sounds like a RAM issue

I don't think iOS is designed to have that many tabs open
 
Hi it has been awhile since I have followed macforums but I just read about your problem with tabs disappearing and I can say that that has happened to a few times until I figured out what was happening.
I noticed that this would happen when I used the slide-over or used split mode (or whatever you call them).
I then pressed the home button twice and noticed that I would have 2 Safaris open. I just checked which one had all my tabs and just closed the other. Since then I feel safe when I think I have lost all my tabs.
I too, as someone mentioned above, use Normal & Private for different tabs/stuff.
Another thing I started saving my Tabs, both normal & private. Only wish I had the option of opening all the tabs like on my Macbook Pro. It would then be easier to just open all my tabs that got closed. Maybe in a future update for iPadOS?
 
mrwamck said:
Hi it has been awhile since I have followed macforums but I just read about your problem with tabs disappearing and I can say that that has happened to a few times until I figured out what was happening.
I noticed that this would happen when I used the slide-over or used split mode (or whatever you call them).
I then pressed the home button twice and noticed that I would have 2 Safaris open. I just checked which one had all my tabs and just closed the other. Since then I feel safe when I think I have lost all my tabs.
I too, as someone mentioned above, use Normal & Private for different tabs/stuff.
Another thing I started saving my Tabs, both normal & private. Only wish I had the option of opening all the tabs like on my Macbook Pro. It would then be easier to just open all my tabs that got closed. Maybe in a future update for iPadOS?
Click to expand...
yes, that is when I have often seen this creep up, but I ultimately with double home click only see the two windows and no tabs in either.
 
atmuwben said:
With the Safari icon in the dock, have you tried holding until the menu appears and select Show All Windows?
Click to expand...
You have just saved me!!!! I had about 50 tabs open, when i accidentally opened and closed a split-screen whilst I was using the Facebook app, then went back to safari to see all my tabs disappeared, nothing in the recently closed tabs.
but indeed, if you press and hold the safari icon, it can show you the currently open windows (never knew you could open multiple windows ha) and on the right upper side it said ‘reopen closed window’ and a little plus sign for opening a brand new one.
Thank you so much!
 
UGh, I CANNOT believe that we are still here, at 13.5.x, that with either an inadvertent swipe or an “open window in new window” or a “merge windows” with a new tab Or window opening, one can lose ALL their open tabs seemingly FOREVER. That is just not right and if apple wants to make IOS the new Mac OS, this has to be resolved.
 
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Do you guys not realize that open tabs are not all stored in RAM at once right? They only get stored in RAM when you're actively using/switching between several tabs. After that the URL just gets stored in storage.

But that tabs clearing issue does sound obnoxious as hell—I haven't had that but I've had a separate issue of tabs showing the wrong previews for the title.
 
primarycolors said:
Do you guys not realize that open tabs are not all stored in RAM at once right? They only get stored in RAM when you're actively using/switching between several tabs. After that the URL just gets stored in storage.

But that tabs clearing issue does sound obnoxious as hell—I haven't had that but I've had a separate issue of tabs showing the wrong previews for the title.
Click to expand...
I think I know they are not all RAM hogs, but I really don’t like when 150 just disappear and cannot be recovered at all.. not just the page, but the URL at all. that just chaps my butt
 
My tabs on iPad have been mystifying me by disappearing as well, but this morning I found that just touching the top of the screen where they should be made them reappear!
 
While I can not understand the need for ever having 450 tabs open, I wonder if you always need them why not create a bookmark for them in an organized fashion. It’d be fast finding them that way then searching through 450 open tabs anyway.
 
atmuwben said:
With the Safari icon in the dock, have you tried holding until the menu appears and select Show All Windows?
Click to expand...
I just tried this and it didn’t work. Apparently I had three other windows with nothing on them open as well, but my main window is of course completely gone.
 
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