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Fix delete zombie ghost items in iCloud tabs 2023

If you have several Apple devices and use the Safari browser, iCloud tabs is a convenient way to access web pages you’ve got open on another device. A common problem is that when you close a tab on another device it keeps showing up on other devices. It seems that when you close a tab and connectivity is lost to Apple’s iCloud servers, the closing of that tab is never registered.

On a Mac, if you’re seeing phantom tabs from your iPhone or iPad, the easiest way to remove them is to reset the iCloud tabs database:

  1. Turn off Safari in the iCloud settings on all the devices. If prompted, Delete synced data from your iOS device.
  2. Go to this folder ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari
  3. Delete the three files that start with CloudTabs (CloudTabs.db-wal CloudTabs.db and CloudTabs.db-shm)
  4. Turn on Safari in the iCloud settings

This approach is working on macOS Ventura 13.5 and iOS 16 and was originally seen here.

Posted on Saturday, August 26th, 2023 at 1:21 pm. Filed under: Tech, Tutorial RSS 2.0 feed.