How to Use Safari Tab Groups on iPhone and iPad [iOS 15]

With its latest operating system updates—iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey—Apple has introduced numerous changes to improve the user experience and bring more functionality to its devices.

A few of these changes make their way to Safari as well. In line with this development, Safari on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 now has some exciting changes, such as a new design, intelligent tracking prevention, web extensions, website tinting, and tab groups.

While each of these features contributes to a better browsing experience in some form, Tab Groups takes center stage as the most important (and much needed) feature update on Safari in a while. In simple terms, Tab Groups is essentially Apple’s equivalent of bookmarks that lets you group relevant Safari tabs together to keep them organized and reduce tab clutter.

So if you use Safari as your default internet browser, here’s how to use Safari tab groups on your iPhone or iPad and improve your browsing experience.

What is Tab Groups?

Tab Groups is a nifty Safari feature that allows you to group relevant browser tabs into different groups to keep them organized and switch between them as needed.

Using it, you can organize your Safari tabs into different groups (and label them accordingly)—based on their category. That way, you can go back and forth between these groups to open specific sets of tabs at once when required and prevent cluttering the browser tab.

For instance, if you use Safari for work and personal use, you can set up two groups such that each one of them has its relevant browser tabs. Then, when you need access to a particular set of tabs, say work, you can switch to that group to open all its tabs (and hide those under the personal group).

One of Tab Groups’ highlights is that it syncs your groups across all Apple devices (using the same Apple ID) via iCloud syncing, so you don’t have to go about creating tab groups on every single device.

How to Use Tab Groups in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15

To use Tab Groups on your iPhone or iPad, first, you need to upgrade them to iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, respectively. Check out our guide on how to prepare your iPhone for iOS 15 update to do this successfully.

Once updated, follow along to learn how to create a tab group and perform other Tab Groups related operations in Safari on your iPhone or iPad.

Create a Tab Group in Safari on iPhone or iPad

Creating a tab group in Safari is pretty straightforward, and you can do this with the help of the following steps:

1. Launch Safari on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap the tabs button on the bottom right and hit X Tabs, where X indicates the number of browser tabs you have open in Safari.
   
3. In the Tab Groups window, select New Empty Tab Group.
   
4. Give a name to your tab group in the name field and hit Save.
   

Safari will now put all your open tabs into the tab group you’ve just created. And subsequently, you’ll be able to open new tabs and close the open ones—just like you did earlier.

If you’d like to rename group tabs, you can do it easily by going into the Tab Groups window (using steps 1-3 above), accessing the edit option by either swiping left on the tab group or clicking the Edit button on the upper-left corner, and entering the new name for the group.

Once you’ve created multiple tab groups in Safari, you can switch between them using these steps:

1. Click on the tabs button in Safari to bring up all your open tabs. Alternatively, you can swipe up on the address bar to do this.
2. Hit X Tabs to bring up Tab Groups.
3. Click the tab group you want to open to view all its tabs. If you want to access the ungrouped tabs or private tabs, they can be found on the top with X Tabs and Private notation, respectively, and you can select them to open those tabs.

Move a Browser Tab to a Different Safari Tab Group

When organizing tabs into Tab Groups, you might sometimes find the need to move them between different tab groups. When this happens, the following steps should help you in the process:

1. Open the tab group from which you want to move a tab.
2. Tap and hold the tab you want to move, select Move to Tab Group from the menu, and choose the tab group to which you want to move this tab from the list.
   

Once you’ve done this, your tab will appear in the other tab group.

Arrange Tabs in Safari on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15

While Safari always offered the ability to rearrange (or move around) browser tabs by clicking and dragging them, it’s now bringing the option to arrange them automatically.

To arrange Safari tabs automatically, use the following steps:

1. Click on the tabs button to bring up all open tabs.
2. Tap and hold a tab, select Arrange Tabs By, and choose between Arrange Tabs By Title or Arrange Tabs By Website to arrange them by their title or website name.
   

Delete a Tab Group on iPhone or iPad

In case you no longer want a tab group for some reason, you can choose to delete it. Do keep in mind that doing so will also close all its tabs. Follow the steps below to delete a tab group:

1. Hit the tabs button and tap on X Tabs or the tab group name currently active to pull up the Tab Groups window.
2. Swipe left on the tab group you want to delete and tap on the bin icon. Alternatively, you can tap and hold on a tab group and select Delete or hit the Edit button on the top left, tap on the three-dot icon next to a tab group, and select Delete to delete it.
   

Organize Your Browsing With Safari Tab Groups

Apple’s revamped Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 aims to introduce a better browsing experience on iPhones and iPads, thanks to various feature add-ons.

As such, the Tab Groups feature in Safari plays a crucial role in delivering the same by putting you in control of how/when browser tabs appear in Safari. This allows you to browse the internet efficiently without getting bogged down by too many tabs. Not to mention, of course, it also makes finding open tabs a lot easier.

If you’ve just installed iOS 15 or iPadOS 15 on your iPhone or iPad, you might also want to check out the best Safari extensions and how to download and install Safari extensions on your device to get more out of Safari.