macOS: Safari’s Secret Open Recently Closed Tabs Tip
Fun pic shows Dua Lipa performing an acoustic set of tracks from her upcoming album at a Today At Apple event.
The situation: You’ve been researching for something or other and accidentally closed the wrong Safari tab(s). Now you can’t find or remember that brilliant website you wanted to use.
What you usually do: Menu>History and choose Recently Closed item. A new menu will appear showing you the last twenty or so websites URL’s you’ve closed down. Pick the one you need.
What about the Secret?
I promised to show you a way to do this you probably hadn’t seen before, so here goes:
Look to your Safari tabs.
Just to the right of these you should see a plus (+) sign. Click it and you create a new Safari tab in the current window — but have you tried control-clicking that Plus sign?
Try it now.
Look — there it is — all your Recently Closed tabs in one place. Why is this useful? I like it because it means I can maintain my focus on the browser, rather than turning my eyes to the top of the screen and because it limits mouse and cursor use. (You can even navigate between those items in the list using the Up and Down arrows, press Return to open one up).
Want more Safari tips? Take a look at these 🙂
Jonny, thank you so much for the tip. Also, thank you for a perfect example of how Apple fails big time today with UI. Apple has forgotten the very principles it pioneered that gave rise to the personal computer revolution as we know it. Had we stayed stuck with the CLI, computing would have never gone mainstream; at the very least it would have severely hampered progress. The failure with the CLI is not with its lack of power or flexibility, but rather discoverability. What good is a feature if a user is not aware of its existence? The big distinguisher between Apple and Microsoft was the UI, specifically the elegance of the interface. As time goes on, Apple is digressing, succumbing to complexity while Microsoft treads water, dog paddles maybe. Apple can do better and it should. Learning from its past would be a good way to start.
No need to control-click, just click and hold.