Photo: Khamosh Pathak
At some point, everyone who uses the web suffers from tab fatigue. You might try managing them using different windows, but that’s never been a great solution, and they don’t carry between all your devices. And while group tabs are the way to manage unorganized tabs, Safari users were out of luck. Until now, because you can finally group tabs in Safari on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
With the iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey update, Safari gets a redesign that is heavily focused on tab groups. You can quickly create different tab groups that are then synced between all your devices.
How to use Tab Groups on iPhone
On the iPhone, the Tab Groups feature is hidden in the tab switcher. Tap the Tabs button (the cascading squares icon) from the bottom toolbar to open the tab switcher.
Here, you’ll find a new “Tabs” dropdown at the bottom. Choose “New Empty Tab Group” to create a new group without any tabs. Or you can choose to create a new tab group using all currently open tabs. Give the group a name, and choose “Save.” You’ll now see the group in the Tab Groups section.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
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You can come back to the Tab Groups page to switch to a different tab group, or to go back to your other open tabs. If you want to delete a tab group, tap the “Edit” button, choose the Menu button next to a tab group, and tap the “Delete” button. Once a tab group is created, you can open new tabs, and continue browsing like you normally would.
If you’re in the open tabs section, adding a tab to a tab group is also easy. Just press and hold the address bar, choose the “Move to Tab Group” option, and choose the tab group. To open a link in a particular tab group, tap and hold the link, and use the same “Move to Tab Group” option.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
How to use Tab Groups on iPad and Mac
With iPadOS 15, Safari on the iPad is starting to get closer to the Safari on the Mac. There’s now a brand-new sidebar that also houses the Tab Groups feature.
The Tab Groups feature on the iPad and Mac is mostly the same, the only difference is that instead of tapping, you click. And instead of a tap-and-hold gesture, you use right-click.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
On your iPad or Mac, open the Safari app, and tap the Sidebar button to expand the sidebar.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
Here, you’ll see all open tabs in the “Tabs” section. Use the New Tab Group button at the top (it looks like two cascading squares with a Plus symbol), and choose the “New Empty Tab Group” option to create a fresh tab group, or the “New Tab Groups from Tabs” option to convert all open tabs into a tab group. Give the tab group a name and tap “Save.”
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
Now you can switch to the tab group from the sidebar. When a tab group is open, you can tap on the name from the toolbar to switch to a different tab group, open tabs, or switch to Private mode.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
To move a tab to a tab group, tap and hold the tab (right-click on the Mac), and choose the “Move to Tab Group” option.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
To delete a tab group, just swipe left on the tab group name (right-click on the Mac), tap the Delete button, and choose the “Delete” option from the popup to confirm.
