If you’ve upgraded to OSX 10.10 Yosemite or use any version of iOS7 or later, you’ve probably noticed that many features in Safari have been improved.
One of these is Tab View.
What Are Tabs?
Tabs let you have one browser window, with several websites open on separate tabs within that window.
This makes it easy to move quickly between websites or do side-by-side comparisons.
Safari Tab View
Any time you have more than 6 or 7 tabs open in Safari, it becomes difficult to tell one from the other.
Tab View provides an overview of all open tabs.
You can enter Tab View on a Mac in one of 3 ways:
- Go to the Menu Bar and Choose View > Show All Tabs or Show Tab Overview
- Use the Keystroke Shortcut – Shift Command Forward Slash
- In Safari, using the trackpad, pinch using 2 fingers.
What Am I Looking At?
On A Mac:
In Tab View, you are shown all your open tabs as small tiles.
To exit Tab View, either click on one of the tabs or hit Esc.
Stacked tiles, indicate that you are looking at a group of tabs open from the same website.
In the example below, I have several tabs open on the BBC website.
Click any tile and you’re taken directly to that tab.
To close a tab, hover the cursor over the tile, and click the X that appears in the top left-hand corner.
On An iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch:
Inside Safari, tap the Show All Tabs button to access Tab View.
Move your finger up and down the screen to scroll back and forth between open tabs.
On an iOS device, you can access Tab View from inside Safari by tapping the Show All Tabs icon at the bottom right of your screen.
Tap on any tab that interests you.
One More Thing
Tabs open on a Mac or iOS device can be accessed from another Mac or iOS device, if both are signed in to the same iCloud account.
This is incredibly useful. If you were looking at websites on your Mac at home and had to leave to go to the office, you could easily access those same sites from your iPad or iPhone.
How Does It Work
On A Mac:
- Enter Tab View.
- Scroll down until you see a list of the tabs open on your Macs and iOS devices.
- Click on any tab you wish to view.
On An iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch:
- Inside Safari, tap the multi-tab button to access Tab View.
- Scroll down until you see a list of the tabs open on your Macs and iOS devices.
- Tap on any tab you wish to view.
On an iOS device, it’s easier to browse iCloud tabs in landscape view.
In order for iCloud Tab View to work:
- All devices need to be signed into the same iCloud account.
- In iCloud preferences, all devices need to have Safari checked.
That’s it… and Happy New Year 🙂
How do I find open tabs window
is there a shortcut to select a tab in “show all tabs” view?
i would like to CMD+SHIFT+\, CMD+F to find a tab i’m looking for and then hit another key to open that tab…
or is there even a better way to archive this?
Hi Rezss – All instructions and shortcuts for the Safari tab process are in Apples support document here – Safari 9 (El Capitan): View webpages in tabs If the answer isn’t there, Google “creating new Keystroke shortcuts”. You may not be able to create new shortcuts if the command isn’t already available through the Menu bar. – John C
Was looking for a way to show all tabs in ~all windows~. I don’t want to have to go through all open windows, and then look through the tabs in each. Would like to see a list or thumbnails of all. Anything?
Hi Keith – Not that I’m aware of. There isn’t an Apple Shortcut for it. Unless a third party make an App that does this, I really doubt it. You’re looking at a manipulation of the macOS graphics system and I doubt Apple would allow it. Let me know if you find out different. – John
Manipulation of the macOS graphics system? I don’t think so. It would just require a list of all open tabs in all windows, not thumbnails of those tabs. It’s incredible stupid that Apple doesn’t show all tabs in all windows. What’s the point of seeing just that window if you’re searching among dozens of tabs?
Just pinch on your trackpad using two fingers and it will display all your tabs in one window
Of course you are correct. This post was written in 2015. Unfortunately, with over 400 posts I don’t have the manpower to go back and fix these with updates… but, I will try.
Man, your submit button is hidden.I have to highlight the bottom part of the page to see the button. I’m using safari.
Thanks a million. New site with its problems. Glad you pointed that out. Should now be fixed.
How do I activate the tabs to stack in tab overview, like in your example picture? Safari 13.0.3 (14608.3.10.10.1)
Hi Muji – To the best of my knowledge that functionality has been removed from later versions of Safari – John
How can I tell Safari to not delete the thumbnail images so quickly? Each day when I click the tab overview button, it takes several minutes as it recreates the 30+ thumbnail images for all the sites I have open. Can’t they be cached for a week or not be removed until I actually close the tabs?
Hi Bob – I’m not aware of any way to control caching in Safari. If you search the web you may find Terminal code that will accomplish what you want. Otherwise, calling and speaking to Apple i always a good way to go. Best of luck. – John
Is there a way to auto tile multiple web pages on Safari? For example, I want to create grid of 4 x page on my screen so I can monitor all the pages at once at equal & optimal size.
Unfortunately, that is not an available option.