Nothing breaks your reading flow like tapping a link and instantly losing the page you were on. By default, Safari on iPhone jumps straight to every link you tap, which means the article you were reading gets pushed aside and often has to reload when you go back. The good news is that Safari has a built-in option to open links in the background instead. With one quick change in Settings, every link you tap will load quietly in a new tab behind your current page, so you can keep reading without interruption and check the new pages whenever you’re ready.
Make Safari open every link in the background
The fastest way to change this behavior is a single setting inside the Settings app. Turn it on once, and you will never have to think about it again:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap Safari.
- Tap Open Links.
- Choose In Background.
That’s all it takes. From now on, tapping a link keeps you on the page you’re reading while the new page loads in a tab behind it — you’ll see Safari’s tab counter tick up with each link you open. Apple’s iPhone User Guide documents this preference alongside Safari’s other customization options, and it’s one of the first settings TechRadar‘s iPhone guides recommend changing for calmer browsing.
Open a single link in a new tab with a long press
Prefer to decide link by link? A long press gives you per-link control without changing the global default — handy when you only occasionally want to peek at something:
- In Safari, touch and hold any link until a preview menu appears.
- Tap Open in Background to load the page in a new tab without leaving your current one, or tap Open in New Tab to jump straight to the new page.
- To see everything you’ve opened, tap the tabs button (the two overlapping squares) in Safari’s toolbar, then tap any tab to switch to it. Swipe a tab sideways to close it.
If you enjoy reshaping how Safari works, our guide on how to change Safari’s design on iPhone walks through the tab bar and start page layouts you can tweak next.
If it still doesn’t work
Links still jumping straight to the new page? First, confirm you changed the setting in the main Settings app under Safari → Open Links — pages opened inside other apps’ built-in browsers don’t always respect Safari’s preferences, so test with a link tapped directly in Safari. If the setting is correct, force-quit Safari and reopen it, then try again. Finally, make sure your iPhone is on the latest iOS release: older versions occasionally ignore the background-tab preference until they’re updated. Video walkthroughs on YouTube can also help if you want to see the exact menus in action.
FAQ
Will background tabs drain my battery or mobile data?
Barely. A background tab loads its page once and then sits idle — it doesn’t keep refreshing in the background. The impact on battery and data is negligible for normal reading.
How do I close all the tabs I’ve opened?
Touch and hold the tabs button in Safari’s toolbar, then tap Close All Tabs. You can also close tabs one by one from the tab overview screen.
Conclusion
Opening links in the background is one of those tiny settings that makes browsing on iPhone noticeably calmer. Set it once in Settings → Safari → Open Links, use the long-press menu for one-off links, and you’ll never lose your place in an article again. For one more Safari annoyance worth fixing, see how to stop Safari from suggesting passwords for websites on iPhone.
