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Is there a way to have Safari return to the latest tab rather than the first tab I have?

What is happening is very annoying. The scenario is:

1) I copy some text from a tab I have open in Safari.

2) I leave Safari to paste the text in a document and edit it. (The behaviour also occurs when I reopen Safari after sleeping my iPad).

3) I return to Safari and find myself at the first tab I have rather than the tab from which I copied the text.


Is there a way to have Safari return to the latest tab? What is more annoying is that this does not happen all the time. This is happening on my wife’s iPad as well.

Posted on May 14, 2022 11:09 AM

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Posted on May 14, 2022 5:21 PM

Some suggestions:



That's all I can think of for now, unless you are sufficiently motivated to contact Apple: Get Support

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14 replies
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May 14, 2022 5:21 PM in response to Kdtdagg

Some suggestions:



That's all I can think of for now, unless you are sufficiently motivated to contact Apple: Get Support

May 14, 2022 5:44 PM in response to John Galt

Thanks for your suggestions. However, I have done all the things you suggest to no avail. I will try the Apple support route. But, given past experience, I don’t expect much success. Thanks for trying to help. If anyone else has any suggestions I am most open to hearing them. I used to be quite happy with Safari but …

May 15, 2022 6:47 AM in response to John Galt

Nice idea. However, I don’t think that is the case. It is always the first tab that it goes back to. My first tab is that of my municipality. I could maybe understand if I had closed the most recent tab just before leaving Safari. However, in the scenario I described, I just go to another app.


I was hoping that there was an option in preferences that I could set/unset.


May 15, 2022 11:00 AM in response to Kdtdagg

I can find no Safari Preferences or settings applicable to that concern.


In an effort to duplicate what you are experiencing, I launched Safari which already had a few dozen open tabs. I copied some text from one of them (not the first, not the last, one in between) and pasted it into Notes. Returned to Safari, and the same tab was still frontmost.


Then I forced Safari to close, opened it again, repeated the same actions. Same result. Tried a different tab this time. Same result. Tried a local municipality's website. Same result.


Then I completely shut down the iPad and restarted it. Repeated the same actions. Same result.


I realize none of this helps you, and it seems unlikely that you two are the only people experiencing what you're experiencing. Obviously there is something we're missing; I just don't know what it is.

May 15, 2022 5:01 PM in response to Kdtdagg

You may be on to something with a lot of open tabs, but I had 30 or more of them open when I tried to duplicate what you're seeing. It's possible you are running into a memory limitation (RAM not storage) but it's still not supposed to happen.


Determining whether a memory limitation could be a factor isn't easy and requires delving into the system logs. Besides, there isn't anything you could do about it anyway.


Are both your iPads identical models?

May 16, 2022 4:23 AM in response to John Galt

They are not the same model. One is an iPad Pro and the other an iPad Air2. Both have lots of free storage but I am not sure how much RAM.


Another symptom I notice is that Safari is very slow to start under IOS 15.4.1. That is, clicking on Safari when it is not open shows a white screen for four or five seconds before a tab is displayed.


By the way, both the white screen and the behaviour we have been discussing are new features under IOS 15.4 so it might be a RAM issue.


May 16, 2022 8:23 AM in response to Kdtdagg

If my Safari did what yours is doing I'd consider it borderline unusable.


None of this is helping, and you're interested in settings so let's think about them. The relevant settings on my iPad are as follows:


General


AutoFill:


Use Contact Info > off

My Info > None

Credit Cards > On

Saved Credit Cards > None


Favorites > Favorites

Show Favorites Bar > off

Block Pop-ups > off

Extensions > None


Tabs


Separate Tab Bar > selected

Open New Tabs in Background > On

Close Tabs > Manually


Privacy & Security


Prevent Cross-Site Tracking > On

Hid IP Address > From Trackers

Block All Cookies > off

Fraudulent Website Warning > On

Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement > On

Check for Apple Pay > On


Settings for Websites


Page Zoom > 100%

Request Desktop Website > All Websites > On

Reader > All Websites > off

Camera, Microphone, Location > Ask


Advanced


JavaScript > On

Web Inspector > off

Remote Automation > off

Experimental Features > default settings used; I didn't alter any


---


If I omitted a particular setting it's because I really don't think it's relevant. Most of the above shouldn't be relevant anyway; if anything is relevant it's likely to be either Extensions or Tabs. One or more of those settings are almost certain to be different than yours, so consider toggling them to determine if it makes any difference.


I'm using an iPad Pro, iOS 15.4.1 with copious storage.

May 16, 2022 10:48 AM in response to John Galt

The behaviour is very annoying. However, it is what it is.


I have started to reduce the number of tabs … half of them are gone and performance is better. The last three times I have started Safari it has restarted at the last tab I was using. Here’s hoping that the behaviour is gone. Now to try and see if my wife’s iPad can be fixed too.

Is there a way to have Safari return to the latest tab rather than the first tab I have?

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