If you had the chance to help me with the following issue, I’d be very grateful!
Description of the issue:
Very often, Brave on iOS closes my browsing windows, without me ever having asked for it. I don’t know if I have inadvertently set a setting to do so, I’ve checked countless times and couldn’t find any. This happens in Private Browsing mode.
How can this issue be reproduced?
Open a website in Brave in private browsing mode.
Leave Brave or lock the device (iPhone).
When I go back to Brave, the window (or sometimes several windows) are gone.
Expected result:
Windows only get closed when I specifically ask for it. Even private windows stay open indefinitely until I explicitly close them.
Brave Version( check About Brave): Version 1.82.1 (174)
Mobile Device details
iPhone 15 Pro Max on iOS 26 (happened before, even on 18 and 17)
@steeven I’d be happy to share a crash log. I’ve browsed through the list and also searched for brave, but there was no entry. Maybe I have to look for another keyword?
Brave Browser iOS version 1.83 (118). Crashed Saturday, November 1, 2025, after spending some time re-arranging and editing the bookmarks.
Bookmarks are OK; and, I maintain routine backups of bookmarks.
Private Browsing Only
Sent you an e-mail message with Apple iOS analytics / log attached (“Client-2025-11-01-151617.txt.zip”). E-mail message Subject: “Brave Browser iOS Crash log”
(Received confirmation that Brave Support received e-mail. 3:59 PM EDT)
Although I shared my one single crash report, I kind of have the impression it’s linked to something else. Maybe some setting I got wrong (I didn’t set it to close tabs after a certain amount of time)? After the one crash log I sent I didn’t see any new one. The crash log was about a memory issue, but I don’t think that it’s relevant in general in my case. I don’t use my phone that intensely, and other browsers are handling these topics quite smoothly. Is there any other way to enable debugging information?
It’s still happening, and I don’t know why. I can’t find any crash reported that is related to it. Is it just a bad idea to use private browsing mode? Like this, it’s a bit frustrating to see an empty browser when before I had a couple of open tabs. @steeven I’d be very grateful for any help.
That is a very good question and maybe something all of us have over looked… in hindsight, I’m thinking the easy solution to this fix, is that you’ve accidentally enabled Private Browsing Only, so to check…
Go to ... at bottom right All Settings Shields & Privacy Under the subheader Other Privacy Settings…
Check & see if Private Browsing Only is Turned ON for you.
If it is on, you’ll want to turn that OFF.
The point of Private Browsing is to have things cleared when you are done with a session, so having that always on, could be the issue. Another way to tell if it’s on is if things appear to be tinted a bit purple.
And since we’re talking about it, I like to share this short blog post (see below link) whenever discussing this subject, it does less than many people might realize. it’s mostly good on public/shared computers or just wanting quick access of the same site with no or different credentials
Yes, I’m private browsing mode, and I activated private browsing mode only.
@Evan123 of course I expect my private browsing windows to stay open unless I close them. That’s at least how, to my knowledge, all other browsers I know of behave (Safari, Firefox, Vivaldi, Chrome…). It’s not because it’s private that it has to have an expiry date. There’s a separate option to tell Brave to close tabs after a certain time, but that’s set to manual.
@User.1.000.000.000 thank you for this link (I had already read it ), I unfortunately know that it’s hard work not to get tracked too easily and that private browsing is certainly not helping much in that respect or most of the time not at all. The reason I prefer using private browsing is to have a cleaner interface without all the history popping up everywhere. Maybe I should revisit the idea. I’ll think about it.
In the meantime I still think it’s not how Brave should handle Private Windows, i. e. it should not close them after some time. Or at least it should tell the user the activating private browsing only will automatically close the tabs after x hours.
I don’t think what you are experiencing is the expected result actually, sorry my heads been spinning with a few different things going on recently/personally (also lack of sleep) and there’s a lot to this discussion…
Maybe I should just take a break… anyway I’ll leave the Brave Support/Employees & Community Ninja’s to assist from here for you I think (at least for the time being )
), I unfortunately know that it’s hard work not to get tracked too easily and that private browsing is certainly not helping much in that respect or most of the time not at all. The reason I prefer using private browsing is to have a cleaner interface without all the history popping up everywhere. Maybe I should revisit the idea. I’ll think about it.
(at least for the time being 
)