Sticky Ghost Safari iCloud Tabs

Every few months this issue comes up for me. Oddly when I get a new device or when my Apple devices aren’t all running the latest operating system. Every few months I have to do a search for the solution. So now I’m writing it down here for myself and others to hopefully find.

If you have an issue in Safari on MacOS where you have iCloud Tabs on your Start Page that are closed on your other devices, but still persist in this list, here is the solution.

Note: All iCloud tabs will be gone once you complete these steps. This resets things completely in my experience. So, save your tabs somewhere. As bookmarks, notes, emails, whatever, before you proceed.

1. Open Finder
2. Select “Go” from the menubar, then Go to Folder…”
3. You can also have Finder as your front-most application and use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Command+G (⇧+⌘+G)
4. Type or copy/paste: ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Safari/
5. Close Safari
6. Delete the following three files: CloudTabs.db, CloudTabs.db-shm, CloudTabs.db-wal
7. Open Safari. Ghost tabs are gone.