How to Switch Your Safari Layout and Tab Bars

The Safari app in iOS 26 has got a brand new toolbar at the bottom which takes up less space on your screen - but also gives you fewer buttons. It’s a kind of pros and cons thing as to whether or not you want to keep it. Well, I’m going to show you what it does and then show you how to change it so you can make that choice for yourself.

First of all, things like getting to the tab screen are now hidden underneath the More button on the right-hand side. I can tap on there, then open up All Tabs, and that’s where I can add a new tab and close tabs as well.

But there are some gesture shortcuts we can use too. For example, if you swipe up on the tab bar at the bottom, that will take you to your All Tabs screen. I can also swipe sideways on the tab bar to jump between different tabs - which is something you could do before, but not many people realised it.

Now, speaking of what you could do before, you may want the old tab bar back with the bookmarks button, the add new tab button, and so on. If we jump into the Settings app and search for Safari, towards the bottom of this page you’ve got some options.

By default, iOS 26 uses the new Compact Tab Bar - that’s the one I’ve just shown you with the address and a button on either side. However, you can go back to the Bottom Tab Bar, which you’ve had before. This has got more options and more buttons. Let’s quickly choose that and then swipe back into Safari. Straight away, you can see it looks a bit more like what you’re probably used to from iOS 18. I can still swipe sideways to jump between tabs, and now everything is a little bit closer to reach for adding a new tab, closing tabs, bookmarking, and sharing.

We also have a third option. If I jump back to Settings again, this time we’re going to have the Tab Bar at the top. This is a lot more like the traditional Safari from a few years ago. If you jump back into the browser now, you can see I’ve got a toolbar at the top and at the bottom. All my controls are at the bottom, and I can change the address bar at the top. Yes, you can still swipe sideways - but only on the address bar at the top, not the toolbar at the bottom.

There’s no right or wrong option here - it all depends on your preference. I quite like the compact one, but I am trying to learn those new gestures. It’s breaking a lot of muscle memory, but you might prefer the bottom one or the top bar instead.

There are loads more things you can customise about your iPhone on iOS 26, so check out my videos down below. Make sure you subscribe and I’ll see you next time.