safari

safari is a macOS-only terminal tool for capturing Safari windows and tabs, browsing saved backups in a TUI, and restoring a previous session with one command.

Features

• Capture the current Safari session into structured JSON backups
• Browse backups in a keyboard-first TUI with preview and detail views
• Restore tabs grouped by Safari window instead of reopening everything flat
• Keep backups in an application data directory while still reading legacy ~/.safari data
• Use CLI commands for automation or the TUI for interactive workflows

Requirements

• macOS with Safari installed
• Rust toolchain if you want to build from source
• Automation permission for Terminal/iTerm to control Safari through osascript

Install

cargo install --path .

Or run from source:

cargo run

Commands

# Launch the TUI
cargo run

# Capture the current Safari session
cargo run -- capture

# List saved backups
cargo run -- list

# Restore the latest backup
cargo run -- restore

# Restore the second backup shown by list
cargo run -- restore --index 2

Backward-compatible aliases are also kept:

cargo run -- dump
cargo run -- reopen

TUI Shortcuts

• j / k or arrow keys: move between backups
• enter: open full session details
• n: capture a new backup
• r: restore the selected backup
• d: delete the selected backup with confirmation
• f: refresh the backup list
• q: quit

Inside details:

• tab / h / l: switch between the window list and tab list
• j / k: move inside the active pane
• space: mark or unmark the current window
• r: restore the current window
• s: restore all marked windows
• o: open only the selected URL
• a: mark all windows or clear all marks
• u: clear marked windows
• Esc: go back

Data Storage

New backups are stored under the application data directory managed by directories:

• ~/Library/Application Support/dev.lhpqaq.safari/sessions

Legacy backups stored in ~/.safari are still listed and can still be restored.

You can override the storage location when testing or packaging:

SAFARI_STORAGE_DIR=/tmp/safari cargo run -- list

Development

cargo fmt
cargo test