How to Fix Persistent ‘Ghost’ or ‘Zombie’ iCloud Tabs on Mac (Safari)
If you’ve ever closed Safari tabs on your iPhone, only to see them mysteriously reappear on your Mac, you’re not alone. This “ghost tab” problem seems to happen when iCloud sync metadata gets out of sync between devices and has been annoying for many months. Bookmarks and the Reading List aren’t affected, but it can be frustrating when tabs you thought were gone keep coming back and simplying closing them on your computer or phone is a temporary fix.
Step-by-Step Fix:
Before you start: make a full backup, especially of tabs, bookmarks, or any important data.
(Tested on Mac OS 26.2 / iPhone OS 26.2)
- Stop session restoration
- Safari → Settings → General → set new windows/tabs to open with Empty Page.
- Quit and reopen Safari
- Verify iCloud tabs are persisting.
- Turn off iCloud Safari sync
- On your Mac
- On your iPhone
- Delete local CloudTabs database
- Finder → Go → Go to Folder →
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari/
- Finder → Go → Go to Folder →
- Clear Safari caches
- Delete contents of:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Caches/
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/
- Delete contents of:
- Reboot
- Re-enable iCloud Safari sync
- On your iPhone first—confirm tabs are empty.
- Then on your Mac—choose OK to merge bookmarks/Reading List when prompted.
- Verify iCloud tab status
- Wait a few minutes, check that old tabs no longer reappear.
This should clear the local CloudTabs database and caches and forces Safari to rebuild its iCloud metadata from scratch. Good luck!
