How to Close All Tabs on Your Mac (2026): Shortcuts and Tips

To close all tabs on a Mac, close the window they live in: press Shift-Command-W in Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Edge and every tab in that window goes at once. To keep one tab and close the rest, Control-click that tab and pick Close Other Tabs. Command-Q quits the browser and closes every window.

A tab bar that has shrunk to a row of tiny icons is a familiar Friday afternoon sight. The trouble is rarely the shortcut itself. It's that the tabs come back the next morning, or that one of them was the page you still needed. This guide covers the fastest way to clear tabs in each Mac browser, how to keep the one that matters, how to stop Safari and Chrome from restoring everything, and what to save before you wipe the slate.

Close all tabs on Mac: the quick answer

Every major Mac browser closes a single tab with Command-W and a whole window, tabs included, with Shift-Command-W. Where they differ is in how you keep one tab and close the others.

Sources for each row: Apple's Safari shortcuts and closing tabs pages, Google's Chrome shortcuts, Mozilla's tab menu guide and Microsoft's Edge shortcuts.

How to close all tabs in Safari on Mac

Safari on the Mac has no single "Close All Tabs" command, so the quickest way to close every tab is to close the window with Shift-Command-W (File → Close Window), which shuts the window and all its tabs while Safari stays open (Laptop Mag). If you have several Safari windows, repeat it in each one, or quit Safari.

1. Click anywhere in the Safari window whose tabs you want gone.
2. Press Shift-Command-W, or choose File → Close Window.
3. Repeat in any other Safari windows, or press Command-Q to quit Safari and close them all.

Before you close anything, Shift-Command-\ opens Safari's tab overview, a grid of every tab in the window (Apple). It's the fastest way to spot the one or two pages worth keeping.

Close every Safari tab except one

To keep one Safari tab and close the others, Control-click the tab you want to keep and choose Close Other Tabs (Apple). Apple also lists a quicker version: hold Option and click the Close button on the tab you want to keep, and every other tab in the window closes (Apple).

From the keyboard, hold Option while the File menu is open and Close Tab turns into Close Other Tabs; the shortcut is Option-Command-W (iDownloadBlog). Check the File menu on your Mac once to confirm the shortcut it shows, since Option-Command-W means "close all windows" in many other Mac apps.

I use this before every screen share. When a client call is about to start, I click the tab with the deck, Option-click its Close button, and my inbox, the calendar and a half-read article disappear before anyone sees them.

Close Safari tabs to the right or left

Control-click a tab and choose Close Tabs to the Right to clear everything after it, or use the Option-key version of that menu for Close Tabs to the Left, as Apple's guide describes it (Apple). If there are no tabs to the right, Close Tabs to the Left is the only choice. This works well when the useful tabs are the first few you opened and the rabbit hole came after.

Let Safari close old tabs automatically

Safari can close tabs for you after a set time. Go to Safari → Settings → Tabs and change Automatically close tabs from Manually to one day, one week or one month (Apple). Manually keeps every tab open until you close it yourself.

One week is the setting I'd pick for a work Mac. Anything I haven't needed in a week was never going to be read, and the tabs I actually use stay put.

How to close all tabs in Chrome on Mac

In Google Chrome on a Mac, Shift-Command-W closes the current window with all its tabs, and Command-Q quits Chrome entirely (Google). The Quit Google Chrome command in the Chrome menu does the same (Google).

1. Click in the Chrome window you want to clear.
2. Press Shift-Command-W to close that window and every tab in it.
3. To close every Chrome window at once, press Command-Q.

Close all Chrome tabs except one

Control-click (or right-click) the tab you want to keep and choose Close other tabs; pinned tabs stay open (MacTrast). The same menu has Close tabs to the right, which keeps everything to the left of that tab (Computer Hope).

Close a handful of Chrome tabs together

To close several Chrome tabs but not all of them, select them first: click the first tab, hold Shift and click the last to select a range, or hold Command and click individual tabs. Then Control-click one of the highlighted tabs and choose to close them (Google). The same menu groups, pins or moves the selection.

If the problem is memory rather than clutter, Chrome's Memory Saver may be the better fix. Turn it on from the three-dot menu under Settings → Performance: Chrome puts tabs you aren't using to sleep and reloads them when you click back (Google).

How to close all tabs in Firefox on Mac

In Mozilla Firefox on a Mac, Shift-Command-W closes the window and all its tabs, and Command-Q quits Firefox (iDownloadBlog). For finer control, Firefox puts its options in one place: Control-click a tab and open Close Multiple Tabs (Mozilla).

• Close Tabs to Right and Close Tabs to Left clear one side of the tab you clicked.
• Close Other Tabs keeps only the tab you clicked.

Close Duplicate Tabs sits on the main Control-click menu, not in that submenu. It closes copies of the current page, which is handy when the same document has been opened from three different links.

If you've selected several tabs first (Shift-click for a range, Command-click for individual tabs), the option you choose applies to all of them (Mozilla).

How to close all tabs in Edge and other Mac browsers

Microsoft Edge on the Mac uses the same keys as Chrome: Command-W closes the current tab, Shift-Command-W closes the window, and Command-Q quits Edge (Microsoft). Control-click a tab to see Edge's close options for the tabs around it.

If you still use Arc, its days are numbered: Arc stops working on December 22, 2026, so it's worth moving your tabs and bookmarks to another browser before then. Our Dia and Arc alternatives page compares where Arc users are heading.

How to close every browser window at once

The reliable way to close every window and tab in a Mac browser is to quit it with Command-Q. In most Mac apps, Option-Command-W closes all of an app's windows (Apple), but browsers don't all follow that rule: in Safari, the File menu may show those keys as Close Other Tabs instead, as above.

• Command-Q quits the app in front, closing all its windows (Apple).
• Option-Command-M minimizes every window of the app instead, if you want them out of sight but not gone (Apple).
• Option-Command-Esc opens Force Quit, for a browser that has frozen under too many tabs (Apple).

Why do my tabs come back after I quit?

Tabs reappear after quitting because the browser is set to restore your last session. In Safari, that's Safari → Settings → General → Safari opens with, which can start with a new window, a new private window, all windows from your last session, or all non-private windows from it (Apple). Apple notes that some of those choices only show up when Close windows when quitting an app is selected under System Settings → Desktop & Dock.

In Chrome, open Settings → On startup. Continue where you left off restores your tabs every time; Open the New Tab page starts clean (Google).

I keep Safari on "all windows from last session" anyway, and the reason is a slip of the finger: I've hit Command-Q when I meant Command-W more than once, and restoring the session turns that into a non-event. When I really want a clean start, I close the windows first with Shift-Command-W and then quit, so there's nothing left to restore.

Save the tabs you need before closing them all

Closing everything is only safe once the pages you'll want again are saved somewhere. Both Safari and Chrome can save a whole window of tabs in one step.

• Safari: click the down arrow next to the Sidebar button and choose New Tab Group with [number] Tabs, then name it (Apple). The tabs leave your main window and wait in the sidebar.
• Chrome: press Shift-Command-D to save all open tabs as bookmarks in a new folder (Google).

When I finish a research afternoon, I save the window as a Tab Group named after the project, then close it. The next time the project comes up, I open the group and I'm back where I was, without a tab bar full of it all week.

For a page you only needed the gist of, a summary is lighter than a bookmark. Our guide to summarizing text on a Mac covers the built-in options.

How to reopen tabs you closed by mistake

Press Shift-Command-T to bring back the last tab you closed in Safari, Chrome, Firefox or Edge (Apple, Google, Microsoft). In Safari, the same shortcut also reopens the last closed window. In Chrome and Firefox you can press it repeatedly to bring tabs back in the order you closed them, and Firefox restores your previous session when there's nothing else left to reopen (Mozilla).

Habits that keep the tab count down

• Close Other Tabs before every screen share, so the only thing on screen is what you meant to show.
• Turn on Safari's automatic closing at one week, or Chrome's Memory Saver, so neglect costs you nothing.
• Save a project's tabs as a group, then close them; a named group is easier to find than one tab lost in a crowded bar.
• Use Close Duplicate Tabs in Firefox when the same doc has been opened from several emails.
• Learn Shift-Command-T, so closing aggressively never feels risky.
• Check the shortcut before you press it. Command-Q, Shift-Command-Q and Option-Command-W sit close together and do very different things. If you live in Mail as much as in the browser, the Mail shortcut list is worth a look too.