This has always been inconsistent at best, but in iOS 17, it worked quite well for me between my phone and iPad. However, now that I’m on 18 on my phone and 18.1 on the iPad, I find that to get open tabs on one device to appear on the other, I have to force quit Safari on the device that I want to have them displayed. Vice versa, if I close all tabs on one device, they will continue to be displayed on the other device, if I had gotten them to appear in the first place. Again, I have to force quit Safari to have the previously closed tabs disappear. Is there a specific sequence to get this to work properly? I’ve used the feature frequently in the past when I’ve opened tabs on my ipad before leaving home in the morning and then looking at them on my phone later when out and about. But now, unless I force quit Safari first on my phone, I will not see the open tabs from my ipad.
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Safari - iCloud Tabs
- Thread starter papbot
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If viewing opened tabs from other device is your main concern, an alternative is to always browse in a tab group. It had some sync issues last year but I haven't experienced that in a while.
I frequently will check tabs that I had opened on one device but didn’t have time to completely read at that moment, so I look at them later on whatever device, usually my phone, I have with me. My assumption is that for some reason Safari is not syncing this feature in the background; it’s only after I force a sync by force quitting the app that they appear. That was not necessary in iOS 17. But there are numerous threads here about iCloud tabs syncing issues in the past, which I’ve also had, but in 17 it was quite rare if it occurred at all for me.
I’m really surprised i haven't seen more discussion about this, because Safari cloud syncing is a giant mess on iOS 18 and Sequoia. Nothing is working right. Cloud tabs are not updating properly on other devices, either showing old (closed) tabs or not showing new tabs. Closing a tab on another device doesn't work at all on any device. Updating a MacBook to Sequoia resulted in my bookmarks getting completly messed up. I fixed it from a backup and they synced properly to all cloud devices. Then I added a new iPhone 16 two days ago, and bookmarks have yet to sync at all to it even though it’s showing cloud tabs. Everything worked fine until the latest updates. Perhaps there are so few people that use Safari cloud sync and cloud tabs, that they don't even realize it’s broken. But unless there is noise, I imagine it’s not even on Apple’s radar to fix. Closing tabs on other devices was not working in the betas, and Apple never fixed it, but bookmarks and cloud tabs were otherwise working normally.
I’ve reported the issue by Feedback Assistant but currently that’s showing no other such reports. I would hope that those who were on the betas have used this mechanism to report the problem. Both my devices are now on 18.1 but nothing has changed from 18.0. The open tabs are getting to iCloud, as force quitting Safari always brings them to the screen. The same is true if you close a tab - it will continue to be displayed on the synced device until you force quit Safari. Or you can restart the device and that will get them displayed. So force quitting Safari or a restart is making Safari pull them in or they are there but just not being displayed.
I reported the issue with the close tab function on each beta, and never got feedback. I don’t have much faith in Apple’s feedback system anymore. Once upon a time I used to get responses, but that was years ago. I haven’t received a single response to any feedback I’ve filed since about 2019 or 2020. I know developers who feel the same way. I also reported the recent bookmarks issues.
I have not had any luck in force quitting Safari.
I had posted last night on another thread about the bookmark issue. I also got a new phone that is on iOS 18. Abridged version of a long story is that I ordered a 15 Pro Max with iOS 17 two weeks ago thinking that I would stay on 17 until 18 was more stable but I had too much going on and couldn’t set up the phone until 2 days ago and if I wanted to use an iCloud backup it forced me to use 18. So my problem is just like yours, my bookmarks (and reading list) won’t sync with my other devices (they are iOS 17 but that shouldn’t matter). I have a few work arounds that I will be trying. I need a new iPad so I ordered one from Amazon coming tomorrow. I am going to test that first just by turning it on and putting in my Apple ID and see without doing a restore from a backup if the already synced bookmarks work. Otherwise, I have reached out to my Apple computer consultant who is part of the outside Apple consulting network, and will try to come up with a strategy of maybe importing the bookmarks either from an HTML file or I also backed up all of my devices with the bookmarks with IMazing, Also as another poster mentioned, the tab groups are syncing without an issue, so that could be a possible workaround for me. I will report back if any of my proposed strategies work. Please do the same.
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Also finding a similar effect. It has always been a hit and miss thing but 14/17 seemed to fix it and it has been reliable for months. Upgrade to 15/18 and it is a mess again. Cloud tabs on each device show stale tabs for others. Often a quit and open partially resolves it. Closing tabs on other devices often but not always works.
How can Apple continue to make a mess of this? It work on Edge and Firefox even across platforms without all of the iCloud assistance. Is this not tested, do people not test this function or is there some other reason this mess persists?
Safari cloud tabs has been a decade-long problem. Something Chrome got right on day one, Apple still hasn't gotten right. I don't think Apple cares to fix it.
I have stop using them for several years. Turned it on again on the start page in iOS 18. Sync was either slow or inconsistent...and then stopped altogether. So I turned it off again.
When I want to see a tab on another device, I usually use handoff or bookmark, or read later. Bookmark sync isn't perfect either, and sometimes they change order without reason, but it seems to work better than cloud tabs.
I have stop using them for several years. Turned it on again on the start page in iOS 18. Sync was either slow or inconsistent...and then stopped altogether. So I turned it off again.
When I want to see a tab on another device, I usually use handoff or bookmark, or read later. Bookmark sync isn't perfect either, and sometimes they change order without reason, but it seems to work better than cloud tabs.
It is frustrating. It is incredulous that they have not got this to work reliably. I am amazed they let this through test. Are we expected to believe that nobody during an extended internal, private and public beta has never seen this or reported it? I report it on every OS update and get the usual Apple support faff and fob off. What makes it even more amazing is it works flawlessly on Firefox (along with Bookmark sync) and Edge also. They even manage to get cross platform sync to work without an issue.
Over a week after adding a new iPhone 16 to my Apple account, Safari bookmarks have yet to sync to it. I’ve tried turning Safari iCloud sync on and off. It doesn’t fix it. Bookmarks are empty. I actually called Apple Support on it. I didn’t think they could fix it, and they couldn’t. They wanted me to factory reset each and every synced device, even though some of them seem to be syncing. They don’t know what to do about it. I hoped it may get Apple’s attention by calling support, because filing feedback doesn’t seem to help. A few years ago, I had an issue with a bug where tech support couldn’t fix it, and after a escalating me to higher support, a call was originally with a software engineer who was actually interested in figuring out what was going on and fixing it. And they did. Apple doesn’t seem to do this anymore.
On other connected devices, bookmarks are somewhat syncing but have been getting messed up, and there seems to be long delays that differ on different devices. The Cloud Tabs are also not properly syncing on all devices.
On other connected devices, bookmarks are somewhat syncing but have been getting messed up, and there seems to be long delays that differ on different devices. The Cloud Tabs are also not properly syncing on all devices.
I previously reported the issue. Multiple times of multiple years. Occasionally it was taken seriously but never really resolved it. I was often asked to reset devices, logout/login to iCloud and so on. They seem to have no concept that my time may be worth something and how disruptive this process is. Nor do they seem to have any concept of the old Apple ethos ”it just works”. Reminds me of Windows of years back when the solution to many issues was either to restart or reinstall.
I have found no solution for Safari. Brave works very well. Sync of bookmarks, extensions, history, tabs, themes and so on works fine between iOS, ipadOS and macOS devices. Also works to Windows. Added benefit is much better ad blocking compared to Safari and an ad-free YouTube experience that even works via AirPlay to AppleTV.
Firefox also works very well for similar results to Brave. Raspberry PI OS has Firefox so bonus is sync to PI.
Even Edge works though I tend to find Edge a bit slower (especially on Windows) than Brave.
It amazes, baffles and frustrates me how these browsers solve the issue despite (or maybe as a result of) the “benefits” of iCloud. Also fascinating how Apple clearly must know this is an issue unless they ignore all the reports, support issues and feedback from users like us and many more. Do they not care or is there a fundamental issue? Maybe better to solve this before rolling out a bunch of AI that I hope I am able to disable.
I really want to use Safari exclusively. I prefer it for most things. However Apple’s ignorance of the problem and lack of delivery of a resolution mean I am split. I just may move to Brave as primary browser. Sad really.
My recommendation to solve the issue is look at Brave. It may just do what you want.