Reset the device? I don't think so. I have the same problem with Catalina with the latest Safari 15.
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Safari "From iPhone" showing old tabs that have been closed.
- Thread starter russell_314
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This started for me in late June 2021 between an iPhone 7 Plus and an iPad Pro. (I know because one of my zombie tabs is for the transit system of a city I was visiting then.) I have tried every proposed solution short of a sledgehammer. I finally turned sync off but I sure appreciated when it worked.
This issue appears to have fixed itself...at least for now.
I used my Mini yesterday, for the first time in weeks, and noticed that the old tabs had disappeared. It now accurately reflects the tabs currently open on my iPhone and updates as it should when tabs are opened and closed.
I have no idea how or when it started working correctly. Although I haven't used the machine in several weeks, it has been on 24/7 (not sleeping) as it always is. I did update my iPhone to 15.5 a couple of weeks ago so maybe that had something to do with it...though the issue had persisted through many updates...including the upgrade from 14.x to 15.
I used my Mini yesterday, for the first time in weeks, and noticed that the old tabs had disappeared. It now accurately reflects the tabs currently open on my iPhone and updates as it should when tabs are opened and closed.
I have no idea how or when it started working correctly. Although I haven't used the machine in several weeks, it has been on 24/7 (not sleeping) as it always is. I did update my iPhone to 15.5 a couple of weeks ago so maybe that had something to do with it...though the issue had persisted through many updates...including the upgrade from 14.x to 15.
I have been experiencing this issue for years now :-(
I tried to fix it today by turning off Safari sync on all devices and re-enabling again and now even older tabs appeared.
For general sync issues I use iCloud.com to fix but AFAIK there is no iCloud-tabs there so that I can exclude them from the server.
Only step left is to reverse-engineer their APIs to try to delete these tabs from the server but I'm not sure it'll work 😅
I tried to fix it today by turning off Safari sync on all devices and re-enabling again and now even older tabs appeared.
For general sync issues I use iCloud.com to fix but AFAIK there is no iCloud-tabs there so that I can exclude them from the server.
Only step left is to reverse-engineer their APIs to try to delete these tabs from the server but I'm not sure it'll work 😅
I have found a possible solution! I too have suffered with this forever. Now YMMV, but this was my setup and particular occurrence of this problem:
Devices (all on latest OS, always):
MacBook Pro 2019
iPhone 14
iPad Pro
I only saw ghost tabs FROM the iPad ON my MacBook Pro. I have tried everything, as you know, this problem is all over the internet in discussion groups.
I got to thinking, why would ghost tabs exist in iCloud, that don't show on the device when running Safari, that can be closed from other devices, but they come back again? And then I realized - I recycle my device names over the years! My convention is that I name devices after cities in Hawaii, and I have my favorites - so my iPad for example, is "Honolulu". But I have used that name before on other devices in past years. So I got to thinking, maybe somehow the ghost tabs are from a device "Honolulu" that used to exist, this "Honolulu" doesn't see it, but other devices do when data about "Honolulu" is pulled down from iCloud.
And then I thought of another theory - with nothing to do with recycling names - I thought maybe in my case, the iCloud tabs data is just corrupted somehow from some former OS version, and it can't be easily fixed (as we can attest). So---
I had previously turned off iCloud Safari syncing on Honolulu/iPad. I changed the name of my device to something entirely different and guaranteed unique for me ever - I named it "Basil" (Switzerland). I turned on iCloud tab syncing, it asked if I wanted to merge iCloud Safari data from the old device. It only allows yes lol (why ask)....so I merged. I gave it a few minutes to adjust to a new iPad name, opened a tab on there iPad, went to my MacBook Pro and bought up the Start page to see iCloud tabs on other devices, and the 2 ghost tabs were there. Darn. I deleted them from my MacBook Pro's start page entries for the iPad.
BUT - since then, it's been a solid hour, I have been bringing up different tabs on Basil/iPad, checking the MacBook Pro, and it's been perfect! I am thinking this might have fixed it, whether there was an old usage the device name or not - just change the device name to something you have never used. Maybe the ghost tabs got merged across, but then could be easily deleted (even though the did not show up as actual tabs on the iPad.)
So the bottom line, rename your device to something guaranteed unique in your Apple device history. You may possibly have to delete the ghost tabs one more time wherever they have been appearing.
See if it helps.... you know, I have never seen anyone propose this as a solution to this problem, so maybe....My problem is different than others, in that the ghost tabs showed up only on one device - some people see it on every other device. There could be multiple reasons for ghost tabs for sure, but maybe this helps someone? Good luck! I'll post back if it proves to not last for me.
EDIT/UPDATE: Never mind - old tabs have come back twice 😩😖😡😵💫
Devices (all on latest OS, always):
MacBook Pro 2019
iPhone 14
iPad Pro
I only saw ghost tabs FROM the iPad ON my MacBook Pro. I have tried everything, as you know, this problem is all over the internet in discussion groups.
I got to thinking, why would ghost tabs exist in iCloud, that don't show on the device when running Safari, that can be closed from other devices, but they come back again? And then I realized - I recycle my device names over the years! My convention is that I name devices after cities in Hawaii, and I have my favorites - so my iPad for example, is "Honolulu". But I have used that name before on other devices in past years. So I got to thinking, maybe somehow the ghost tabs are from a device "Honolulu" that used to exist, this "Honolulu" doesn't see it, but other devices do when data about "Honolulu" is pulled down from iCloud.
And then I thought of another theory - with nothing to do with recycling names - I thought maybe in my case, the iCloud tabs data is just corrupted somehow from some former OS version, and it can't be easily fixed (as we can attest). So---
I had previously turned off iCloud Safari syncing on Honolulu/iPad. I changed the name of my device to something entirely different and guaranteed unique for me ever - I named it "Basil" (Switzerland). I turned on iCloud tab syncing, it asked if I wanted to merge iCloud Safari data from the old device. It only allows yes lol (why ask)....so I merged. I gave it a few minutes to adjust to a new iPad name, opened a tab on there iPad, went to my MacBook Pro and bought up the Start page to see iCloud tabs on other devices, and the 2 ghost tabs were there. Darn. I deleted them from my MacBook Pro's start page entries for the iPad.
BUT - since then, it's been a solid hour, I have been bringing up different tabs on Basil/iPad, checking the MacBook Pro, and it's been perfect! I am thinking this might have fixed it, whether there was an old usage the device name or not - just change the device name to something you have never used. Maybe the ghost tabs got merged across, but then could be easily deleted (even though the did not show up as actual tabs on the iPad.)
So the bottom line, rename your device to something guaranteed unique in your Apple device history. You may possibly have to delete the ghost tabs one more time wherever they have been appearing.
See if it helps.... you know, I have never seen anyone propose this as a solution to this problem, so maybe....My problem is different than others, in that the ghost tabs showed up only on one device - some people see it on every other device. There could be multiple reasons for ghost tabs for sure, but maybe this helps someone? Good luck! I'll post back if it proves to not last for me.
EDIT/UPDATE: Never mind - old tabs have come back twice 😩😖😡😵💫
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@donawalt Thanks for sharing hehe I was optimistic until I read your edit. I really thought it would work. For me renaming my devices is not an option as I like consistency. When I get some time I’m gonna try to reverse engineer their API and maybe there are requests failing upon deletion that could lead this investigation somewhere.
If the problem is on the server side then we can only hope Apple gets their stuff together 😅
I wonder: are we unlucky or is this feature not used by most people? 🤔
If the problem is on the server side then we can only hope Apple gets their stuff together 😅
I wonder: are we unlucky or is this feature not used by most people? 🤔
@leods92 I think maybe it’s not used much. I finally turned them off from showing on my MacBook Pro, as that was the only device that always showed the iPad wrong - my iPhone does not. 99% of the time I want to grab MacBook Pro’s Safari tabs on my iPad, so this will work for me. I suspect logging everything out of iCloud and then back in would fix it, but that’s too much (photos reloading, everything re-syncing, etc.) to do.
This is still occurring for me under Sonoma 14.5 and iOS 17.6
Someone historically suggested running this command from terminal defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
(Noting you need to temporarily enable full disk access to terminal in settings to be able to run it)
and then clicking Debug -> Sync iCloud History from within Safari
Then, as there is no way to debug iOS/iPadOS Safari; on those devices go to iCloud -> turn off and on Safari what is synced.
Not sure if it is a fix?
Someone historically suggested running this command from terminal defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
(Noting you need to temporarily enable full disk access to terminal in settings to be able to run it)
and then clicking Debug -> Sync iCloud History from within Safari
Then, as there is no way to debug iOS/iPadOS Safari; on those devices go to iCloud -> turn off and on Safari what is synced.
Not sure if it is a fix?
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I tried it, it does not fix it - I still have 1 Mac that shows 6 old tabs from another Mac. The other Mac, iPhone, and iPad are all fine. Nice find on the debug menu in Safari though!
I have turned this feature off - it's always been broken. It's not worth it to do what has worked in the past, sign out of iCloud on every device, clear all History/cache on all devices, turn off Safari in iCloud, and then get everything resend - which for me takes a couple of days due to a large number of photos and shared albums. Not worth it.
I have turned this feature off - it's always been broken. It's not worth it to do what has worked in the past, sign out of iCloud on every device, clear all History/cache on all devices, turn off Safari in iCloud, and then get everything resend - which for me takes a couple of days due to a large number of photos and shared albums. Not worth it.