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March 21, 2008

tips

Psst, Safari 3.1 is a single window wonder

Posted Mar. 21, ’08, 12:00 PM PT by Aayush Arya
Category | Tips

Safari single windowGather round, children—it’s story time. Once upon a time, web browsers only used to have single, self-contained windows and each webpage had to be opened in a separate one. With the passage of time and the advancement of technology, we saw tabs make an appearance, and suddenly our web browsing became a whole lot easier, faster, neater and better managed.

This was great, of course, but now that we’re used to a tabbed environment, it’s very irritating whenever clicking on a link in our beloved browser, Safari, opens it in a new window. No amount of hacking, or even simple, old fashioned bribery would make Safari change its ways across the board.

Now, at long last, the clouds have parted, and Apple, the knight in shining armor, has taken note of this annoying problem and worked out a solution for its army of followers. Instead of making it a simple, one checkbox affair, though, it has decided to make us work a bit to enable this hidden feature.

You are required to launch Terminal (which can be found safely nestled within /Applications/Utilities) and enter this command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Once you hit return and relaunch Safari, you’ll find that it will never steer from the noble path of the single window web browser now, no matter how trying the circumstances. The gates to ultimate web surfing joy will part and you and Safari will live happily ever after.

[Via TUAW]


16 Comments

Chris Freitag said:

FINALLY. Why-oh-why wouldn't they put this option on the Tabs preference? This is such a huge step forward for Safari.

March 21, 2008 12:33 PM
Philippe said:

And if you're on Windows?

March 21, 2008 1:10 PM
Donn Author Profile Page said:

I find it easier to organize my browsing train of thought by combining the use of tabs and windows, so I turn this feature OFF in Firefox, but to each his own.

March 21, 2008 3:24 PM
goobimama Author Profile Page said:

@Philleppe: The windows version of Safari is like just 25% of what it's on the mac. Half the killer features are missing. Although, I don't think I can blame Apple for that cause it's just the way Windows works (gotta love the windows bashing!).

Nice tip aayush! Really nice. I hope after this I can drag out a window in that spiffy wobbly animation? I need that feature...

March 21, 2008 3:35 PM
Peetz said:

The solution in Safari is to right-click the link.

To activate right-click on the mouse, go to System Preferences at the Mouse settings. Active the right button as a Secondary Button.

Thus, when you right click a link, it gives you the option of opening the link in a new tab.

I've been doing this ever since I started OSX, so I was surprised other people don't know this feature exists.

March 21, 2008 4:01 PM
Call Me Yo Daddy Author Profile Page said:

This is a great tip! I was using Saft primarily for this type of tab functionality in Safari but it was still not quite as polished as I liked. Now tab browsing in Safari is just like Firefox, no multiple windows, just multiple tabs instead.

It's amazing how many Mac users have no idea that by default a browser that offers tabs should NOT open multiple windows when it could open up tabs instead. When I would bring this up to other Mac users they had no idea what I was talking about. Most Mac users use Safari so they're use to a gazillion windows instead of one window with a gazillion tabs. But I had just switched from Windows to a Mac and one thing I was use to was tab browsing in both Firefox and Opera which only uses one window.

Anyway, thanks so much for this terminal command. It's a shame this isn't the default behavior of Safari.

March 21, 2008 7:43 PM
David Peters said:

With Safari 3.1 & OSX, just hold the command key and click for a new tab, command key and N for new window or command key and T for new tab, keyboard shortcut. command, shift and click to open new tab, but stay in the original tab. hope this helps

March 21, 2008 10:05 PM
Kelmon said:

Beats the heck out of me why this preference value isn't accessible in Safari's Tab preferences. I mean, it's a good option, offered by pretty much every other browser, and people have been asking for it for ages. The mind boggles...

March 22, 2008 4:47 AM
Anonymous said:

I agree with having a setting for this, but you can hold the command key when you click a link...

March 22, 2008 8:50 AM
Darren said:

This is an odd post, for a long long time now in Safari I've been able to open links in a new tab simply by holding the apple or shift and apple keys as you click. That applies for links that would normally open in the same window and links that open a new window. I've never entered a terminal command to make this happen! Weird...

March 22, 2008 10:33 AM
Aayush Arya Author Profile Page said:

Yes, and I know that can be done. I've been using that ever since I've started using Safari.

What this Terminal command does is force Safari to open all items in tabs, even when it's coded to popup. So you need not press the Command key just to ensure that links don't open in new windows, because they never will now.

You'll (hopefully) appreciate this feature the day you have a jug of coffee in one of your hands and links keep popping up into new windows every now and then. :)

March 22, 2008 1:32 PM
Dave-O said:

I'd also like to point out that I alway choose Custom Install when I run the Windows Software Updater. If you don't do that you have no idea what is being installed. Guess what it's been trying to push? Windows Genuine Advantage. Nope, no precedent for what Apple's doing.

March 22, 2008 4:07 PM
User said:

Nice tip. Too bad it doesn't work.

March 23, 2008 11:19 AM
jayH said:

for those saying "just use command + click" just FYI, up until recently, there was NO way of opening a link in gmail on a new tab in safari. it would ONLY open on a new window. no matter if you held the command key of if you right clicked. just recently have gmail started to accept the command + click thing to actually work...

you could, however, set IE to open everything on a new tab, and the links in gmail would open on a new tab haha so apple should offer this option to those who are terrified of using terminal, like me.

March 24, 2008 9:23 AM
Dave-O said:

What if you want a link to open in the same tab. It's rare, but a web page I frequent has started spewing windows instead of replacing content, and I don't want to add a tab to the end of the train.

March 24, 2008 3:04 PM
RJ said:

Camino (and maybe Firefox) gives you the option of forcing new windows to open in tabs. When that happens, and you close that tab, it returns to the originating tab instead of the next open tab (if more than 2 tabs are showing). Does anyone know of a way to make Safari replicate that behavior and "snapback" to the originating page without any extra clicks or key combos?

April 14, 2008 9:19 PM

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