What is the little box next to the Start Page in Safari’s tab bar on macOS?

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Level 1

4 points

What is the little box next to the Start Page in Safari’s tab bar on macOS?

Title says it all. See screenshot. I just noticed this today for the first time. Obviously some kind of shortcut for opening a website that seems to always be there. Is it new? It opens the first bookmark in my Favorites but I didn't tell it to do that (i.e., my first bookmark is not set as my home page). Tried Google AI search for "tab bar safari explained macos apple official page" and came up empty. Lots of useless hits, Apple Developer generic tab bars, using Profiles, using tab groups in Apple Vision Pro (I don't even know what that is), etc. Can anybody point me to any documentation? Like what it's called and how you set what website loads? Thank you in advance.

[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: What the h***k is this little box on the left of the Start Page in the Tabs bar

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Sep 3, 2025 06:54 PM

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Answer 1

Mac Jim ID

Level 9

52,994 points

Sep 3, 2025 07:04 PM in response to rselin

You have Pinned a page as a tab, so it appears all the way to the left. All you need to do is tap it to open the page, then go to the Window menu and down to Unpin tab. It will be removed and expand to a normal tab like usual.

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Answer 2

rselin Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 3, 2025 07:01 PM in response to rselin

Okay, I just answered my own question as in a moment of brilliant insight I right-clicked it. Obviously pinned a tab. No idea how I did it, didn't know I could do it, but not surprised. I also sometimes zoom my screen a million times by accidentally swiping the trackpad the wrong way and have to do a force restart as I also don't know what that is called or how to get my screen back to normal size. I wish Apple (and everybody) would stop trying to be so clever. If you're going to do this stuff you should have a big "Reset" button on the keyboard so you can reset everything back to normal like Adobe does with its Reset Workspace command in PS/AI/ID.

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Answer 3

Mac Jim ID

Level 9

52,994 points

Sep 3, 2025 07:08 PM in response to rselin

Sorry, did not get my post in time, before you found your answer. There are many ways to do it. One way is by a two finger tap on the trackpad on a tab and the first option you will see is Pin Tab.

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