macOS has a deeply ingrained “resume” feature that attempts to restore your workspace exactly as you left it. In Safari, this means that if you had 15 tabs open when you completely quit the browser, all 15 tabs will instantly load back up the next time you click the Safari icon in your dock.
While this is fantastic for picking up where you left off after a restart, it can be a massive privacy risk if you share your computer, and a massive memory hog if you simply wanted to quickly look up a single search query on a fresh, empty page.
If you prefer Safari to start with a clean slate every single time you open it, you can disable this automatic tab restoration.
How to Stop Safari from Restoring Previous Windows
You can change Safari’s startup behavior directly in the browser’s settings menu.
- Open Safari on your Mac.
- In the top menu bar (next to the Apple logo), click on Safari.
- Select Settings (or Preferences on older versions of macOS) from the drop-down menu.
- Ensure you are on the General tab (the icon looks like a light switch).
- Look for the dropdown menu labeled Safari opens with:.
- Click the dropdown and change it from “All windows from last session” to A new window.
- Ensure the next setting down, New windows open with:, is set to Start Page (or Empty Page).
Once you close the Settings window, the changes take effect immediately. The next time you fully quit Safari (Cmd + Q) and reopen it, you will be greeted by a single, clean Start Page, regardless of how many tabs you had open previously.
A Quick Workaround (The Shift Key)
If you usually like having your tabs restored, but just want to occasionally open Safari cleanly without changing the global settings, there is a keyboard shortcut. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard while clicking the Safari icon in your dock. This temporarily overrides the setting and forces Safari to open completely blank for that one session.