The Web browser that you use on your computer, whether it is Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, or anything else, gives you the option of viewing your pages in tabs. This means that you can simultaneously have multiple Web pages open at the same time. The Safari Web browser on your iPhone has this feature too, although it behaves a little differently.
This article will show you how to view the tabs that are currently open on your iPhone, as well as how you can close those tabs, open new ones, or open tabs in a private browsing session.
Viewing Safari Tabs on an iPhone 5
The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 5, in iOS 9. By following the steps below, you will be able to see all of the tabs that are currently open in the Safari Web browser on your device. If you have never done this before, and you have had your iPhone for a while, then you might have a very high number of open tabs. This can cause your iPhone to run a little slowly, so closing some of those tabs might be a good idea.
Step 1: Open the Safari Web browser.
Step 2: Tap the icon that looks like two overlapping squares at the bottom-right corner of the screen. If you do not see that icon, then you might need to swipe down on the screen a bit until it displays.
Step 3: View the tabs that are currently open on your iPhone. Note that you can also open a new tab by tapping the + icon at the bottom of the screen, or you can start a private browsing session by tapping the Private button.
You can close an open tab in Safari by tapping the small x at the top-left corner of the tab, or by swiping the tab to the left side of the screen.
You can actually have two simultaneous browsing sessions open on your iPhone at the same time. The first session that can be open is the normal one, where every page you visit is added to your history, cookies are stored, and passwords can be stored. The second session is a Private browsing session. The pages that you visit while in private browsing tabs will not be saved to your history, but they do not close automatically when you exit Safari. You will need to close private tabs, too. Otherwise anyone with access to your iPhone will be able to open Safari and see what you were viewing in private mode.