Seven Safari Tips and Tricks for iPhone and iPad

Safari on iOS has a surprising number of hidden tricks, letting you manipulate tabs, conduct page-specific searches, and more, and not all of these features are immediately obvious due to the gestures involved.

We've rounded up some useful must-know Safari tips that you might not be aware of or may have forgotten, so make sure to check out our video because we bet there's something here that's going to be new to you.

Safari Tips and Tricks

  • Close All Tabs - Have hundreds of tabs open in Safari on your iPhone? You can close them all at once. Just long press right on the "Done" button in the tab view (which you can get to by pressing the little icon that looks like two squares) and you'll see an option to close all tabs.
  • Open Recently Closed Tabs - Accidentally closed a tab you didn't want to close? In the tab view, long press on the "+" button and it will bring up a list of tabs that you've closed recently so you can open it right back up.
  • Search Your Open Tabs - With tons of tabs, you might need to do some hunting around to find the specific tab you're looking for, but luckily, a built-in tab search feature makes this easier. Just scroll to the top of your tabs view (or tap the top of the screen to jump to the top) and you'll see a search bar for searching tabs.
  • Close Filtered Tabs - If you want to close some of your tabs while leaving the rest open, the search feature doubles as a filter. After doing a search in your tabs, long press on the "Cancel" button next to the search interface and you'll see an option to close only the tabs that match your search.
  • Find Text on Page - You know how you can use the Command + F feature on a Mac to find something specific on a page? There's a find feature in iOS too. With a website open, type in a search phrase in the search bar at the top and then scroll down to "On This Page" to search for that term on the website. Alternatively, you can open up the Share Sheet and locate the "Find on Page" button.
  • Close Tabs on Other Devices - If you have multiple devices and use iCloud along with the feature that syncs Safari information, you can close tabs on your Mac or your iPad right from your ‌iPhone‌. To do it, open up the tab view (again, the little icon with two squares), scroll all the way to the bottom of your open tabs, and then you'll see an interface that lists open tabs on other devices.
  • Handoff Websites - If you're looking at a website on your ‌iPhone‌ and then want to open it up on your Mac, you can use Handoff, which is available on most modern Mac machines and iPhones. On the Mac, you'll see a little Safari icon on your dock with a small ‌iPhone‌ icon, just click on that and whatever you're looking at on your ‌iPhone‌ can be opened up right on your Mac. You can also open websites from device to device using the same cloud tab interface used for closing tabs on other devices.

Have other useful Safari tips that we didn't share here? Let us know in the comments and we may include them in a future tips and tricks video.

Popular Stories

AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Friday April 18, 2025 5:16 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
iphone 17 air dummy unbox therapy

iPhone 17 Air's Extreme Thinness Demoed in New Video

Tuesday April 22, 2025 10:22 am PDT by
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
iphone 17 dummies sonny dickson

iPhone 17 Air Almost as Thin as Its Buttons, New Images Show

Thursday April 24, 2025 2:14 am PDT by
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
ipad air windows 11 arm

M2 iPad Air Runs Windows 11 ARM via Emulation, Thanks to EU Rules

Tuesday April 22, 2025 5:01 am PDT by
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect. As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 13 New Features

Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
iOS 18

iOS 18.5 Includes Only a Few Changes So Far

Monday April 21, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes. The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps. In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner. In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...

Top Rated Comments

danielbraun Avatar
77 months ago
Another cool trick is: when on a webpage, long-click the refresh button and select "Request Desktop Site" to view the non-mobile version of the site.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WannaGoMac Avatar
77 months ago
I miss the days when the interface didn’t have all these features hidden.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
shieldcy Avatar
77 months ago
Here’s a very useful tip I recently discovered...

In iOS - Safari: By tapping two fingers on a link, it will open it in a new tab.
It’s like the “open in new tab” functionality on the mac.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
realtuner Avatar
77 months ago
I like when I click on a link that opens a new tab, clicking the back button on that page closes the tab and returns me to the tab I clicked the link from.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
waquzy Avatar
77 months ago
Thank you so much, even after many years of Safari usage, I didn't know most of these. :)
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
djcerla Avatar
77 months ago
I miss the days when the interface didn’t have all these features hidden.
That’s because it didn’t have all these features.

Funny how Mac power users who use daily the epitome of hidden features that are keyboard shortcuts then complain about equally hidden features aimed at iOS power users.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)