Photo: Primakov (Shutterstock)
It only took Apple a decade or so, but you can finally pin tabs in Safari on your iPhone and iPad. The feature was worth the wait: When you close all tabs, it won’t clear the pinned tabs. By effect, you can turn your frequently visited websites into static web apps, without adding them to the home screen.
Here’s how it works: Open the page you want to pin, tap and hold the URL in the address bar, then choose the “Pin tab” option in the menu. You’ll also find this option by long-pressing the tab in the tab-switcher. Either way, the website is now pinned.
Finding the pinned tab is slightly harder, as they simply show up at the top of the tabs bar. They’re easy to spot if you have a couple of tabs, but more difficult if you’re a tab hoarder like me with 226 open tabs at any given moment.
Screenshot: Khamosh Pathak
Of course, there’s a hack for that: Open the tab-switcher using the Tabs button in the bottom-right corner, then tap the status bar to quickly jump to the top of the page. You’ll now see the pinned tabs in pill-shaped icons at the top. These tabs won’t have a preview, but you’ll see a pin icon and a solid white background. If you use tab groups, each group can have its own unique set of pinned tabs. Tap on a pinned tab to switch to it.
When you no longer want to keep a tab pinned, go back to it, tap and hold the URL bar, and choose the “Unpin tab” option. You can also long-press on the tab from the tab switcher to see the same option.
