By Collin Allen

Close Other Tabs

December 3, 2005

Continuing with the recent trend of Mac Tips here at Command-Tab, this is one I recently discovered for Safari. Starting with a window containing multiple tabs, you can close all tabs except the current one by Option-clicking the current tab’s close button. It’s a bit odd, considering a regular click on that very same button will close what you’re viewing, but like most Mac applications, holding Option reverses the behavior. So, if you’re ever looking for not-so-obvious features in Mac apps, hold Option and see what goodies the thoughtful developers coded in for your surprise.

As a bonus, hover over a link and read the text in Safari’s status bar (enabled in View, Show Status Bar; highly recommended to have open). By default, links open in the same tab or window you’re viewing. Now try pressing Command, Option, or Shift and watch the status text change to see the myriad of available options. Try combinations, too!

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