How to Close the Extra Tabs Piling Up in Safari on Your iPhone

The problem you may not know you have

Have you ever tapped a link, then another, then searched for something else — and now your phone feels sluggish or crowded? What's likely happened is that Safari, the little blue compass on your iPhone that opens websites, has quietly kept every page you've visited waiting in the background.

Think of it like leaving every book you've ever opened stacked on the kitchen table. Nothing's wrong with any single book, but the pile gets in the way. These stacked-up pages are called tabs — one tab for each website page that's still open.

Tidying them up takes about ten seconds. Here's how.

How to see how many tabs you have

Open Safari (the blue compass icon). Look at the bottom-right corner of your screen. You'll see a small icon that looks like two overlapping squares. That's the tabs button.

Tap it once. Your screen will shrink down to show little previews of every webpage you have open — sometimes it's 5, sometimes it's 85. Don't be alarmed by the number. This is normal, and it doesn't mean you did anything wrong.

Closing tabs one at a time

If you want to keep some pages and close others, this is the gentle way.

On each little preview, you'll see a small X in the top-left corner. Tap the X, and that page closes. The others stay right where they are. Do this for any pages you no longer need — an old recipe, a news article you already read, directions to somewhere you already went.

When you're finished, tap Done in the bottom-right corner to go back to browsing.

Closing all of them at once

If you'd rather sweep the table clean and start fresh — which is often the easiest choice — there's a shortcut.

Open Safari and tap the two-squares icon in the bottom-right corner.
At the bottom-left of the screen, you'll see the word Done on the right, and on the left it will say something like "X Tabs" (for example, "37 Tabs").
Press and hold your finger on that "X Tabs" text for about one second.
A small menu pops up. Tap Close All X Tabs.

That's it. Every page closes, and Safari gives you a clean, empty window. Nothing is deleted from your phone — your photos, contacts, and apps are all untouched. You've simply cleared the pile of open webpages, the same way you'd clear the kitchen table.

Will I lose anything important?

This is the question most people ask, and it's a fair one. The answer is no. Closing tabs doesn't delete your bookmarks, your history, or any website's information. If you need to visit one of those pages again, you can search for it just like you did the first time.

If there's a page you truly want to save for later — a favorite recipe, your bank's login page — the better tool is a bookmark, which is Safari's version of a bookstore's paper bookmark. But that's a topic for another day. For now, closing the pile is all you need.

Try it today

Open Safari right now and tap that two-squares icon in the bottom-right corner. Take a peek at how many tabs are waiting there. If it's more than you expected, press and hold "X Tabs" and choose Close All. Your phone will feel a little lighter, and so will you.

Need a hand with your technology? We're here to help. Give PorchSwing a call or book an appointment, and we'll walk you through it at your own pace — no rush, no jargon.