Safari 26.0.1 not opening its own webarchive files

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Level 1

8 points

Safari 26.0.1 not opening its own webarchive files

After upgrading to Tahoe, Safari does not open webarchive files, either new ones or older files created with previous versions of Safari. It opens a tab, shows the file path in the top bar, and simply chokes: the file does not load. The "reload page" in the View menu is grayed out. Is this a bug in Safari 26.0.1 ?

The webarchive files are fine, and can be partially viewed with TextEdit, but not with Safari itself.

This seems to be a recurring problem with Safari upgrades, but is still annoying. Maybe a hidden preference can fix it? Or must we wait for Safari 26.0.2 ?

MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on Oct 11, 2025 9:16 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

shine_dusk

Level 1

8 points

Nov 26, 2025 4:35 PM in response to jvarilly

Hi, I found a workaround for this issue.

Try to open a web archive file in safari
Go to settings
Go to "Feature Flags"
In the search box type "archive"
Untick the "Load Web Archive with ephemeral storage" option
Close the settings window
Click the browser url bar and then press the enter key
You should see a failed to load screen
Go back into settings
Re-enable the "Load Web Archive with ephemeral storage" option
Close the settings window
Click the url bar and then press the enter key
The web archive should load and you can load other web archives in that tab - if it doesn't load you might need to push the "back" button in the browser

This seems to be a bug in safari.

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Answer 2

Palorrin

Level 1

15 points

Oct 14, 2025 10:30 AM in response to jvarilly

I am having this problem as well... I just updated to Safari 26.0.1 as well as Sonoma 14.8.1 on my 2022 MacBook Air. Website access is fine, but when I load saved .webarchive files I get the path and name and occasionally a loading bar which never moves. The page is blank. I can load the files with a text program, (no corruption in the files). Another person reported this issue (titled "Safari don't open any Webarchive files") and claimed it was fixed by disabling extensions - it did not help me as I don't have any extensions.

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