How to force Safari 4 to open new windows in Tabs

There’s a setting in the Preferences pane of Safari 4 that says “Open Links from Applications in ‘New Tab’ or ‘New Window.’ ”

Unfortunately, this doesn’t do anything when the link is already within Safari. Anytime a website tells the browser to open a new page, Safari’s default is to open a new window, NOT a new tab. For me, tabbed browsing is powerful because I DO NOT WANT multiple windows, just tabs, but soon, I start getting multiple windows with multiple tabs, and then I’m pissed.

Here is a quick way to make sure all new links open in a new tab (tutorial via switchingtomac.com):

Start by opening a Terminal window (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal). Enter the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Terminal Command

Now restart Safari. Links that used to open in a new Window will now open in a new Tab instead.

Safari 4 Tabs

If you decide you want to change back, just re-enter the command but replace true at the end of the command with false.

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2 Comments

  1. Posted March 31, 2009 at 1:54 pm | Permalink

    Great post! Thank you so much. I switch between Safari, Opera and Firefox on my Mac and this was a constant aggravation for me. This is the first fix I’ve seen anywhere that works. Please tweet and I’ll RT.

    @einar

  2. ipguy
    Posted June 9, 2009 at 10:29 pm | Permalink

    doesn’t work for me running the latest leopard with safari 4

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