How to Pin a Tab in Safari

Apple added a new feature to Safari in El Capitan (OS X 10.11): The ability to pin tabs in the browser. This keeps your frequently used sites updated in the background and easily accessible in the browser. 

Safari's pinned tabs have a couple of cool features not found in other browsers. Pinned tabs are persistent across all Safari windows. That means if you open a new Safari window or even quit Safari altogether, your pinned tabs will stay in place and still be accessible when you open a new Safari window. Sites in those pinned tabs also stay active, so you can get push notifications from apps like Slack or access the most up-to-date page from a pinned news site.

Pin and Unpin a Tab in Safari

There are a few ways to pin and unpin a tab: 

  • Right-click on the tab and select "Pin Tab"

To unpin the tab, right-click again and choose Unpin Tab.

  • Go to Window > Pin Tab. This is your only option if you only have one site open in Safari.

Choose Window > Unpin Tab to unpin it.

  • Drag the tab to the left side of the Safari window. You'll drag it until it becomes a small tab with just the site's favicon or initial in the tab bar.

Drag the pinned tab to the right side of the window until it looks like a normal tab to unpin it.

You reorder your pinned tabs by dragging them before or after other pinned tabs in the browser.