Support

Last updated: July 27, 2026

Getting started

1. Open Safari → Settings → Extensions and turn on Canopy.
2. Set its permission to Always Allow on Every Website.
3. Click the Canopy icon in the toolbar. On iPhone it is in the ᴀA menu in the address bar.
4. Press Page or Site to pin whatever you are currently looking at.

Common questions

Why does it need “Always Allow on Every Website”?

Because Safari hides a tab's address from an extension that lacks permission for that site. Canopy's job is to look through your open tabs for the one you already have open — with narrower permission it sees blank addresses, finds nothing, and opens a duplicate every time. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what Canopy does and does not do with that access; the short answer is that it compares tab addresses in memory and stores nothing.

Clicking a pin opens a new tab even though the page is already open

Almost always the permission above. Check Safari → Settings → Extensions → Canopy and confirm it says Always Allow on Every Website — Safari sometimes resets this after an update.

If the permission is right, check the pin's match mode. Page matches that exact address, so a page whose URL changes as you use it (a document, a search result, a mail thread) will not match. Switch that pin to Site and it will activate any tab on that site.

What is the difference between Page and Site?

• Page — the exact address. Protocol, host, port and path must match; the fragment is ignored.
• Page (ignore ?query) — the same, but query strings are disregarded. Useful for pages that carry tracking or session parameters.
• Site — any tab on that host, ignoring www.. Use this for a mail client, a bank, or anything you navigate around inside.

My Mac and iPhone are not showing the same thing

Both devices must be signed in to the same Apple account with iCloud Drive on. Canopy pulls when the popover opens, so open and close it on both devices. There is also a Sync now button in Settings → Sync.

Apple's iCloud key-value store is not instant — propagation can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, and longer on a poor connection. If the header shows iCloud unavailable, it will say why on hover.

Note that cached site icons are deliberately kept out of sync (they are large and each device can find them on its own), so an icon may appear on one device before the other.

An icon is wrong or missing

Canopy looks for an icon in the page, then falls back to the site's standard icon locations. Plenty of sites simply have no icon to find, some refuse the request outright (Google properties are the usual culprits), and a site on your own network cannot be reached at all from a phone or another device. A link with no icon keeps a lettered tile, which is a working state, not a failure.

After a refresh, the panel says how many were found and groups the rest by reason. Open the line below it to see exactly what happened for each one.

To set an icon yourself, go to Settings › Look › Choose icons. Search a library of brand logos, self-hosted app icons, emoji and symbols, and click one to use it. Each link offers a few suggested searches based on its address, and after you pick one Canopy moves straight to the next link that needs an icon, so a long list goes quickly.

Searching sends only the words you type or tap. Your links, addresses and titles are never sent anywhere. See the Privacy Policy.

This works on every link, not only the ones without an icon, so you can also use it to give a folder one consistent look. Reset puts a link back to finding its own icon. You can still paste an image address into Icon URL or upload a file when editing a link.

Where is the sidebar?

Safari has no sidebar API for extensions on either macOS or iOS, so Canopy uses a toolbar popover instead. You can set its width, its height, and the icon size in Settings → Look, and each folder can display as a list or as a grid of icons.

How do branches work?

A branch is a named set of folders — Work, Research, whatever suits. Switch between them from the header. They are Canopy's own concept and have nothing to do with Safari profiles, so a branch can line up with a profile, a client, or a mood.

To move things around, use Move on a folder or a link. Moving a link asks for a branch and then a folder within it. Moving a folder takes its links with it, since a link has exactly one parent folder.

How do I reorder things?

Drag them. Folders and links can both be dragged into place, on the Mac and on iPhone.

Backups

Importing replaces everything. Restoring a file is not a merge: what is in the file becomes what you have, and anything not in it is deleted on this device and on your others once they sync. Canopy warns you before doing it. If you only want part of a file back, restore it onto a device you can afford to overwrite and move what you need across.

Known limitations

• Some sites (notably Google's) block icon requests from extensions, and sites on your own network cannot be reached from another device; pick an icon by hand in Settings › Look › Choose icons.
• iCloud propagation is Apple's, and is not instantaneous.
• Conflicting edits to the same item on two devices are resolved by keeping the most recent one. The other is not recoverable.
• There is no sidebar, because Safari does not offer extensions one.

Reporting a problem

Email canopy@sabi.me. On macOS you can also open the extension's console — enable Develop → Show features for web developers in Safari, then Develop → Web Extension Background Content → Canopy. Canopy logs each decision it makes about a tab, and pasting those lines usually identifies the problem immediately.