How to Customize Safari Start Pages for Each Tab Group

There are now more options than ever for customizing your Safari browsing experience with Tab Groups. I’ll walk you through how to pin tabs in groups and how to set unique Start Page backgrounds and favorites.

If you've never used Tab Groups before, I'd suggest checking out our guide on creating Tab Groups in Safari first. For more guides on utilizing the various features of your Apple devices, be sure to sign up for our free Tip of the Day newsletter.

Jump To:

• How to Customize Tab Group Start Page Backgrounds
• How to Set Tab Group Favorites
• How to Pin Tabs in a Group

How to Customize Tab Groups Start Page Backgrounds

The first thing I did when when customizing my various Tab Groups was try to make them instantly recognizable visually. This is pretty easy to do, but the menu for doing it is in a spot that is a little hard to find.

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1. When you first create a Tab Group, the background will match your main Start Page. Once you've opened a Start Page within the Tab Group you want to customize, swipe up to scroll to the bottom of the page.
   
   
2. At the bottom of the Start Page tap the Edit button.
   
   
3. This will open the Customize Start Page sheet. Unfortunately, almost all of the options here are universal, not specific to the Tab Group you're currently customizing. For example, if you toggle off Favorites or Shared with You, that section will disappear from all Start Pages, not just the one for this Tab Group. The background image, however, is unique for every Start Page. Swipe up to scroll to the bottom of the page to see them all.
   
   
4. Like the options above, if you toggle off Background Image entirely, it will turn it off on every Start Page. If you select a background, whether one of the built-in options or your own image (which you can access by tapping the option with the large plus sign) , it will be applied only to this Tab Group. So pick one that fits the mood of the group and that will help you immediately identify which group you're looking at. Just tap the image you like and then close the sheet with the X in the upper right, and that's it—you'll see the new background immediately applied.
   
   

While this addition to Safari Tab Groups is useful, I'm hoping we'll be able to do more in the future, such as having unique sets of options for each Start Page.

How to Set Tab Group Favorites

A critical part of any Start Page is the Favorites section. Everyone has their websites they visit every day as well as those sites they go to less often but are too important to risk forgetting. With Tab Groups, you can bookmark Favorites that are specific to different areas of your life. Keep a set of Favorites important for work in your work Tab Group and hide them away when you're done for the day. Then switch to an Entertainment Tab Group that has Favorites such as streaming services, YouTube channels, and other sites you like to visit for recreation.

1. From your Tab Group Start Page, you have two options. You can tap the large plus in the Tab Group Favorites section where you can select a page you’ve favorited elsewhere. If you want to set new as a Favorite, however, that's easy too, just tap into the address bar and navigate to the page as normal.
   
   
2. Once on the page you want to Favorite, just tap the share button at the bottom of the screen.
   
   
3. Swipe up on the share Share Sheet to see more options.
   
   
4. Here I'm tapping Add to "Demo group" Favorites. For you, the name you selected for your Tab Group should appear in place of "Demo group."
   
   
5. This will open a confirmation screen where you can change the name of the bookmark or edit the URL if necessary. If the default is fine though, just tap Save in the upper right corner. Now this page will appear in your Tab Group Favorites section at the top of the start page.
   
   

How to Pin Tabs in a Group

With iOS 16, you can also now pin tabs to specific Tab Groups.  You can use this feature to make sure that certain page you use all the time stay open, but only within the Tab Group they're relevant to.

1. To pin a tab to a group, while in the group with the page open, tap the tabs button in the lower right corner.
   
   
2. Long press the tab you want to pin. This will open a small menu.
   
   
3. In the menu that opens, tap Pin Tab.
   
   
4. After you're done, your pinned tab will appear collapsed above your other tabs. It will remain even if you close Safari, and tapping links in the pinned tab will open the new page in a separate tab.
   
   

For now, these are the only ways to customize your Tab Groups Start Pages individually and while these are still useful, personally I'm hoping we'll be able to do more in the future, such as having unique sets of options for each Start Page.