How to Automatically Close Inactive Safari Tabs on Your iPhone or iPad

With the introduction of iOS 13, Apple has added a new feature to the Safari browser that now lets you automatically close inactive tabs after a set duration. So, if you are the type of person who opens up a dozen tabs, but never closes them, this feature will be really useful. You can choose to automatically close open Safari tabs after a day, a week or a month. Inactive tabs are tabs that you haven’t viewed in the specified duration.

Keep reading this guide as we tell how you can apply settings to automatically close tabs in Safari on iOS 13 and iPadOS 13.

How to automatically close tabs in Safari on iPhone or iPad

Before we proceed, we’d like to point out that this feature not only works for iPhones running the latest iOS 13 software, but also for iPads running on iPadOS 13. Note that iOS 13 is out now, while iPadOS 13 is out September 30. With that said, follow these steps to automatically close tabs in Safari:

1. Open Settings > Safari.
2. Now scroll down to the TABS section.
3. Tap Close Tabs.
4. You can now select After One Day, After One Week, or After One Month.


As you might have noticed, this is set to Manual by default. Any of the options mentioned in step 4 will automatically close Safari tabs on iOS 13 if you don’t view them in the specified duration.

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iPhone 11 or iPhone XR: Which is the best iPhone for India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.​