Safari fails to restore tabs despite 'All windows from last session' setting

Question

Level 1

4 points

Safari fails to restore tabs despite 'All windows from last session' setting

Hoping someone has a proper solution or explanation for this.

I was using Safari on my Mac with around 124 tabs open in one window. I’ve had “Safari opens with: All non-private windows from last session” enabled in settings for months. Never had an issue before. Quitting Safari and reopening always brought everything back.

Today I quit Safari as usual and reopened it, but it only opened a blank start page. The “Reopen Last Session” and “Reopen Last Closed Window” options were both greyed out.

I panicked and opened a new Safari window with just the start page and then closed it again, which probably overwrote whatever was left of the session.

Things I’ve already tried:

Checked iCloud tabs on my iPad but it only shows about 89 of the tabs, not the full session
Checked ~/Library/Safari/ and ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.Safari.savedState/ — no LastSession.plist or windows.plist exists
Looked at RecentlyClosedTabs.plist but it only contains a handful of recent tabs
History only helps for recently visited pages, but I had many tabs open for weeks or months that I hadn’t clicked recently, I didn’t have Time Machine set up unfortunately.

Some Questions I have:

Has anyone actually solved this exact problem?
Why does Safari fail to save the session even when the setting is on?
Is there any way to recover the session after it’s been overwritten by a blank window?
Are there any other folders caches or tools I can use to dig up the full session?
Any extensions or apps that actually work for preventing this in the future?

Would really appreciate any help

Thanks Everyone 🫶

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Reopen Last Session is greyed out and Safari didn’t restore tabs even though “All windows from last session” is enabled

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Jul 14, 2025 3:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

atldev

Level 1

12 points

Aug 22, 2025 10:37 AM in response to m1kolaj

I was definitely experiencing the same bug. After upgrading from 15.6 to 15.6.1, the "Safari opens with:" "All windows from last session" setting is now working correctly for me again.

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Answer 2

brbo

Level 8

38,617 points

Jul 17, 2025 10:38 PM in response to m1kolaj

Hi m1kolaj,

welcome to this Apple (user-to-user) Community!

Re:

"Safari fails to restore tabs despite 'All windows from last session' setting" "I was using Safari on my Mac with around 124 tabs open in one window ...." "...it only opened a blank start page"

Commiserations! Am no expert in this area, yet your post to the community deserves some response

Wondering if you have updated to the latest version of Mac OS, or are still on MacOS 15.3

We may often side-step issues by keeping MacOS up-to-date:

What's new in the updates for macOS Sequoia - Apple Support says: macOS Sequoia 15.5 is th latest

and "This update includes enhancements, bug fixes, and security updates for your Mac".

(NB: If you choose o update MacOS it is always wise to back-up Mac first

Apple support's online articles are full of tips for using tabs effectively.

For me, there is still much to discover

Use tabs for webpages in Safari on Mac - Apple Support

Eg says:

Reopen a recently closed tab

Go to the Safari app on your Mac.
Choose History > Recently Closed, then choose the web page you want to reopen.
You can also reopen a closed tab or window.

_________________________________________________________________________

Re: "Are there any other folders caches or tools I can use to dig up the full session?"

How far back does you History go ? It depends upon your settings ... a week / month / year ?)

For me: "History > Show all history" has daily lists of visited web-pages

That can help re-visit many of the link(s) from any day, at least up to several days ago

_______________________________________

Re: “All windows from last session” is enabled"

As you know one window may have had many tabs open, yet it can be the window only that re-opens.

Seems "windows" doesn't always include "tabs" we had open in the window

____________________________________________________________________

Re: "Any extensions or apps that actually work for preventing this in the future?"

We can generally save our tabs as "Tab-Groups" and have them all open with a click.

Once saved : all, or any one, of our various saved Tab groups can be quickly accessed via the sidebar

More info: Group tabs in Safari on Mac - Apple Support

and

Edit and customize Tab Groups in Safari on Mac - Apple Support

_________________

For MacOS Sequoia:

There's more info on "Tabs" and "Tab Groups" in Apple's Safari User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

(as well as the two "Tab Group" links above)

The "Table of Contects" link at the top of the "Welcome" page (that opens from the link above) leads to detailed "how to" articles. There's also a search field at the top:of the user guide:

All the best :-)

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Answer 3

Sep 27, 2025 12:54 PM in response to m1kolaj

Hi, did you ever manage to restore your tabs?

I am running Safari 26.0.1 on Sequoia (upgrade last week or 2), and while I mostly use Brave, I opened Safari today and see all my tabs are gone too.

I have Time Machine backups and tried to restore the SafariTabs and CloudTabs files, but that doesn't seem to help. There is no, restore all windows option; it remains greyed out.

Also the current SafariTabs file is still 4MB. I have the feeling Safari keeps another file somewhere as the date didn't change when I added a new tab and closed safari.

Unfortunately, when I open a tab with a link to a page, close Safari, re-open safari again, it does not restore the session (though this is checked in the Settings).

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Answer 4

brbo

Level 8

38,617 points

Jul 30, 2025 2:24 PM in response to m1kolaj

Thank you! The "user tip" article below, written by a respected community member may be of interest :

To Beta or Not to Beta - That is the Ques… - Apple Community

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