How to Reopen Closed Safari Tabs on iPhone (iOS 16)

Reopen closed tabs in Safari without searching for the pages all over again.

By Jim Karpen Updated 11/22/2022

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If you're an avid user of Safari, you've probably accidentally closed a tab you were still in the middle of reading. As a result, you wished you had a way to open closed tabs so you could get it back. Luckily, there are two simple ways to reopen closed tabs in Safari on your iPhone! We'll show you how.

Why You'll Love This Tip

Reopen recently closed tabs in Safari to quickly revisit pages you thought you were done with.
If you accidentally close a tab in Safari, you can easily find it again.

How to Reopen a Closed Tab in Safari on iPhone

In the steps below, we'll show you how to reopen recently closed Safari tabs. To learn more about cool Safari features, check out our Tip of the Day newsletter.

Open the Safari app.
Tap on the tabs icon in the lower-right corner of the screen.
Long-press (don't just tap) the + icon.
This will show a list of your recently closed tabs that you can scroll through to find the page you're looking for.
Tap a page on the list to reopen that page in a new tab.

Now your recently closed tab will open in a new Safari tab, and you can pick up right where you left off.

Reopening Closed Tabs from Safari's History

Another way to restore closed tabs is to go to the History tab in Safari. The History tab lists the recent and past pages that you've browsed. Here's how to reopen tabs from History.

Open Safari.
Tap the Book icon.
Tap the History tab.
Tap on the link you want to reopen.

If you currently have no tabs open, the steps are the same! You'll simply be starting from a blank page instead of a current tab. Safari can hold a fairly long list of recently closed tabs, so even if your child is playing around and deletes all open Safari tabs, you should be able to recover them quickly. If you're frustrated with the iOS 16 Safari layout, you may be interested in learning how to get the Safari search bar back to the top, as well as how to stop the status bar from hiding your icons.

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Author Details

Jim Karpen

Jim Karpen holds a Ph.D. in literature and writing, and has a love of gizmos. His doctoral dissertation focused on the revolutionary consequences of digital technologies and anticipated some of the developments taking place in the industry today. Jim has been writing about the Internet and technology since 1994 and has been using Apple's visionary products for decades.

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