One feature I’d like to see added to the Brave browser is an option to automatically close all tabs when exiting the app. Currently, Brave tends to restore previous sessions by default, which can be useful but sometimes poses privacy and performance concerns—especially when multiple tabs accumulate over time. A setting that allows users to choose whether all open tabs should be closed upon exit would offer greater control and a cleaner, more secure browsing experience. This would be especially helpful for users who prefer starting fresh each time they open the browser or who share devices and want to ensure their session isn’t left open for others to see.
@manios for desktop, I think the move would be to simply set the browser to not continue where you left off in Settings --> Get started. Setting this to either of the other options should do exactly what you’re describing.
Tabs are closing without a problem on the desktop app. I was talking about iOS and android.
@manios either one in particular?
To be more specific, I am talking about iOS. I don’t know if android has the option for this, but in iOS there isn’t an option that I’m aware of.
The general concept of what you’re mentioning may be good, in terms of having a toggle for closing all tabs when you exit Brave. I know at least on Android that used to be a behavior and lots of people complained. Then it got removed, I think upstream. But it may still exist in Brave’s settings. I just don’t feel like digging out my old Android to look.
Not sure I remember it ever being a thing on iOS. But I will say you have a few options that may help if you sincerely want to start fresh or ensure the session isn’t open. I’m just not sure if you’re wanting to remain logged in?
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Assuming you want completely fresh on iOS, you can choose Private Browsing Only, the browser will always open in private mode, but it will purge everything when you exit. So the issue here is open tabs won’t remain.
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If you don’t mind clearing data, you could set the Shields settings to enable Shred, which will close the tabs, erase history, and clear cookies for the website. You can do this on a site by site basis or you can enable it to happen all the time. Meaning you could enable globally and just disable for tabs you want to save, but that’s clearly a bit annoying if there’s a bunch of things you’re hoping to keep active each time.
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If you want to keep all your data but want tabs closed, you just press and hold the little square button, the tab switched, and an option will come up that says Close All # tabs or Close All Other Tabs. So in that regard you could just hit that and then exit.
Thanks for the detailed breakdown—these are all solid options and I appreciate you walking through them.
That said, I still think having a simple toggle to close all tabs on exit would be a nice-to-have feature. While the current workarounds do the job, they either require extra steps or affect other browsing behavior (like clearing cookies or switching to private mode). A built-in option for closing tabs on exit would streamline things for users who prefer starting fresh without going fully private or manually clearing tabs.
Overall, your suggestions are helpful, but I’d consider the toggle a more convenient addition rather than an alternative.
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This feature already exists in Android (Settings --> Brave Shields & Privacy). For iOS, you can use the Auto-shred feature to accomplish this.
I don’t want to shred the site since it will erase all the data that it has from me. I prefer to close all the tabs when I’m closing brave and still have my data on the site so I don’t have to always login.