It’s just the beginning of WWDC 2021, and Apple has already dropped massive updates to almost all its products. The new iOS 15, macOS Monterey, WatchOS 8, and so on.
Though Apple likes to bring its ‘A’ game to every opportunity offered, Safari wasn’t getting all the love it deserved from the designing team lately. That being said, we are glad Safari is back with a bang this year!
Safari has been completely revamped, period. Apple has definitely achieved to provide more webpage real estate than before by adopting a new design language.
Fortunately, Apple didn’t stop there, Safari has just rolled into the shop with a host of new features which we will be definitely telling you about. However, for now, let’s know more about the Safari Tab Group feature.
Have you ever felt the need to save your tabs and want to visit them later? Or you wished, you had some way to manage the tabs better? Well, its all now possible on the new Safari rolling out on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS.
Excited to know more about it? Well, scroll down already!
Note: This is a beta feature and won’t be available generally until the public release of iOS 15 or macOS 12 later in fall 2021.
Using Tab Groups in Safari on Mac
If you use Safari for your research other web browsing needs, you know how cluttered it is to manage tabs in multiple Safari windows. Thankfully, with Tab Groups in Safari on macOS 12, you can organize your open Tabs of all types in different groups so accessing them over and over is easier and faster.
Create a Tab Group on Mac
To create a Tab Group in Safari on Mac, Open ‘Safari’ on your Mac and click on the ‘Sidebar’ icon at the top-left corner of the Safari window.
If you’ve got a few open tabs (say 4 tabs) in Safari, you’ll see a ‘4 Tabs’ option in the Sidebar panel. You can create a Tab Group of the tabs currently open in the browser by right-clicking the ‘Tabs’ option in the Sidebar and selecting ‘New Tab Group with 4 Tabs’ from the expanded menu.
Right after after you create a group, you’ll get the option to give a name to the Tab Group. Give it a relevant name and press enter.
That’s it. Your new Tab Group of the open tabs in the browser is now created.
You can also create a New Empty Tab Group by simply clicking on the ‘+’ icon on the top-right of the Sidebar panel and selecting the ‘New Empty Tab Group’ option from the expanded menu.
Give your new empty Tab Group a name and then any tabs you open while this new Tab Group is selected will be automatically added to the group.
View all Tabs in a Tab Group in Grid View
To see an overview of all tabs open in a Tab Group, simply click on the ‘Grid’ icon next to the name of the tab group in the sidebar panel.
Alternatively, right-click on the Tab Group and select ‘Show Tab Overview’ from the available options.
Move Tabs from One Group to Another
You can also move tabs from one tab group to another. To do so, right-click on the tab you wish to move from the Tabs bar, then hover the cursor over the ‘Move to Tab Group’ option, and then select the Tab Group you wish to move the tab to. You can also select ‘Start Page’ to move the tab to ungrouped tabs in Safari.
Delete a Tab Group on Mac
From the Sidebar panel in Safari, right-click on the tab group you wish to remove and select ‘Delete’ from the available options.
Note: Deleting a Tab Group in Safari closes all open tabs from the deleted group. So, be cautious of that. It’s not like the open tabs would transfer to the Start page (where ungrouped tabs live).
Using Tab Groups in Safari on iPhone
The Tab Groups feature in Safari is universally available on both macOS and iOS devices. You can create and use Tab Groups on iPhone just as well as you do on Mac, and it’s extremely helpful in many ways on both platforms.
Create a Tab Group on iPhone
Well, the first and foremost requirement to create Tab Group on Safari is to get iOS 15 on your iPhone.
Once you’re on iOS 15, open Safari on your iPhone from the home screen.
The new Safari has an address bar at the bottom of the screen. This makes accessing open tabs easier. Tap on the ‘Tabs’ icon from the bottom right corner of the screen to view all open tabs in Safari in a Grid view.
Now, at the bottom-center of the screen, tap on the ‘Tab Group’ selector option to open the Tab Groups menu in Safari.
If you want to create a new Tab Group, click on the ‘New Empty Tab Group’ to create a new tab group comprising a single blank tab.
If you wish to create a Tab Group of all open tabs, then click on the ‘New Tab Group from ## Tabs’ option to create a tab group comprising of all currently opened tabs.
Next, give an appropriate name for the tab group and tap on ‘OK’ button.
A tab group will be created and you’ll see its name on the Tab Groups selector option. Tapping on the selector will open the Tab Groups menu where you can switch between all tab groups you create or exit a tab group.
To open a New Tab outside the Tab Group currently active in Safari, tap on the ‘Start Page’ option from the Tab Groups menu. Or, click on ‘New Empty Tab Group’ to create another tab group (if required).
Rename a Tab Group in Safari on iPhone
There can be instances where you would need to rename a Tab Group. Though, you can always head to your Mac and do it easily from there. It is still essential to know how to do it from your phone should you ever want to.
Open the Tab Groups menu by tapping on the bottom-center of the bottom bar on the open tabs grid view screen.
Then, tap on the ‘Edit’ button from the top left corner of the Tab Groups menu.
Next, tap on the ‘More options’ button (three-dots in a circle) and select the ‘Rename’ option.
Alternatively, you can also swipe left on the Tab Group and tap on the ‘Edit’ icon to rename the group.
Finally, type your desired name for the Tab Group and click ‘OK’ button to apply the changes.
Delete a Tab Group in Safari on iPhone
Well, you learned how to create a Tab Group in Safari. Now, it is equally important how to delete one.
Open the Tab Groups menu by tapping on the bottom-center of the bottom bar on the open tabs grid view screen.
Now, tap on the ‘Edit’ button from the top-left corner of the Tab Group pane.
Next, tap on the ‘More’ button (three-dots in a circle) and select the ‘Delete’.
Alternatively, you can also swipe left on the Tab Group and tap on the ‘Delete’ icon to delete the group.
Finally, click on the ‘Delete’ button from the alert to apply the changes.
Move a Tab to Another Tab Group
First, go to the Tab Group in Safari you want to move your page from. Then, simply press and hold the webpage you would like to move.
From the pop-up menu that appears, tap on the ‘Move to Tab Group’ option from the list.
Then, tap on the ‘Tab Group’ you want to move the page to. Alternatively, you can also press the ‘Copy’ icon to copy the page to different Tab Group.
Re-arranging Tabs in a Group
Safari also lets you rearrange tabs inside a Tab Group. It might come in handy when you have a lot of tabs present in a group.
Simply press and hold any tab in the group, and select the ‘Arrange Tabs By Title’ option if you want to arrange them by alphabetical order. Otherwise, tap on ‘Arrange Tabs by Website’ to arrange them according to your most visited websites.
Close All Tabs in a Tab Group
With tab groups, you’re probably gonna end up with many open tabs in different groups. It sounds exhausting even thinking about closing every single of them manually.
Well, to our rescue, Safari has a way to close every tab in the group except the one you have selected.
First, open the Tab Group you want to close open tabs from and then tap and hold on one of the open tabs from the Grid View of tabs. A pop-up menu will show, tap on ‘Close Other Tabs’ option from the pop-up.
This will delete all open tabs in the group except the one that you pushed. Just close it manually if you wish, but then what’s the point of having an empty Tab Group (just delete it).
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