how to sign into safari

Safari: A Beginner’s Guide for iPhone or iPad Users

Safari can be intimidating to learn when you first start using it, but this guide will help you get used to it.

On Apple devices, the default web browser is called Safari. It shares a lot of similar features to other common browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. But if you’re new to using Safari, you may feel a little lost because the interface is slightly different to the others.

So, here’s a beginner’s guide on how to use the Safari app to browse the web on your iPhone or iPad.

How to Search for Content in the Safari App

As with all web browsers, you’ll need to first enable your iPhone’s mobile data or connect to a Wi-Fi network to access the internet.

Then, to search in Safari, simply type a term, phrase, or URL into the Smart Search bar at the bottom of the screen and tap Go on your keyboard. The Smart Search bar is a combination of the address bar and search bar. As you type, you’ll see search suggestions based on your keyword as well as results from your bookmarks and browsing history.

How to Navigate a Webpage in Safari

Once you obtain your search results, you tap on a link you’re interested in. Now let’s look at how you can navigate the webpage once it’s loaded.

How to Jump Back to the Top of Webpage

After swiping to scroll down a long article, you may want to go back up to access the website’s menu. To instantly jump back to the top of the webpage, just tap the topmost edge of your screen.

How to Go Backward (or Forward) a Webpage

After tapping on a link, perhaps the webpage isn’t quite something you’re looking for. To go back to your search results, swipe from left to right from the edge of your screen.

To go forward on a webpage, swipe from right to left instead.

Related: Essential Safari iOS Tips & Tricks for iPhone Users

How to Reveal the Safari Address Bar

Your Safari address bar is automatically hidden away when you’re scrolling down a webpage. To bring it back, tap the bottom edge of the screen that shows the website’s main URL.

How to Work With Multiple Tabs in the Safari App

Having multiple tabs opened in Safari can help you to compare information between webpages and search for new content without having to close your current webpage. Here’s how to work with multiple tabs in Safari on your iPhone or iPad.

How to Open a New Tab

To open a new tab, select the Tabs icon in the bottom-right corner, which looks like two overlapping squares. Then tap the Plus (+) to open a new tab.

How to Switch Between Tabs

Again, hit the Tabs icon. You’ll see a gallery of all your opened tabs in Safari. Select a tab to visit the webpage you want.

Since the release of iOS 15, Apple introduced a new feature in Safari: tab groups. Many of us are probably guilty of having way too many opened tabs. Therefore, organizing tabs into groups makes them more manageable. Learn more about how to use tab groups in Safari on your iPhone .

How to Open a Link in a New Background Tab

When you read long articles, you’ll likely come across a link or two within the content that sparks your interest. To avoid disrupting your reading process, you can make Safari open the link in the background, in a new tab. To do so:

• Go to the Settings app.
• Select Safari .
• Scroll down and tap Open Links .
• Choose In Background .

Next time you want to open a link, long-press it. Then, select Open in Background . When you want to visit that link, select Tabs to view all your opened tabs and choose the loaded webpage.

Saving and Sharing Webpages in Safari

The internet gives you access to a whole new world of information. Save a webpage to refer to it later, or share it with your family and friends.

How to Bookmark a Safari Webpage

To bookmark a webpage to read later, tap the Share icon in the middle of the bottom of the screen (it looks like an arrow coming out of a square) and select Add Bookmark . Type in a bookmark name.

To access your bookmarked webpage later, tap the Bookmark icon (an opened book) and browse through your bookmarks, reading list, and history to find what you’re looking for.

Besides the bookmark option, you’ll also notice that you can add a webpage to your favorites or reading list. Marking a webpage as a favorite will make it show up on your Safari home page. It’s useful if you visit the website often.

To learn more about reading lists, you can visit our guide on the differences between a bookmark and a reading list .

How to Share a Link From the Safari App

Stumble upon an interesting DIY project? A promising recipe you’d like to share with your family? You don’t have to bookmark and remind yourself to show the webpage to them later. You can share the link directly from the Safari app.

Tap the Share icon. You can then select the receiver’s name from the horizontal list of recent contacts, or choose your preferred communication app to send the Safari link to them.

Erasing Your Digital Footprint in Safari

If you’re an aspiring crime writer, having a friend notice your crime-filled search history when they peer over your shoulder is inevitably awkward. Hence, there are some things we’d prefer to keep private and erase all traces of once we exit a web browser.

Safari has a few features to help you with this.

How to Close a Tab

If you don’t close your tabs, old webpages will just auto-load again the moment you head into Safari. Having too many opened tabs affects your browsing speed as well.

Closing a tab is simple. You just need to tap the Tabs icon and then tap the Close (x) button in the corner of the tab.

How to Browse Privately in Safari

Similar to Google Chrome’s Incognito Mode, Safari has a feature called Private Browsing Mode. Your autofill information and browser history won’t be saved when you use this function. Here’s how to use it:

• First, tap the Tabs icon.
• Select the center Tabs button with an arrow next to it.
• Choose Private .
• To open a new private tab, tap the Plus (+) button.

Whenever you’re in doubt about whether you’re in Private Browsing Mode, just check the Smart Search Bar. It will be dark grey instead of white when you’re browsing privately.

How to Clear Your Safari Browsing History

If you forgot to use Private Browsing while searching for confidential information, don’t worry. You can still clear your history in Safari. Just follow these steps:

• Tap the Bookmarks icon.
• Select History (the clock icon).
• Tap Clear .
• Choose the time length from which you want Safari to clear your history.

Use the Safari App to Surf the Internet on Your iPhone

The Safari app has all the features you need for a seamless browsing experience. Once you’re familiar with these basic functions, you can check out and download Safari extensions from the App Store to enjoy more helpful features while surfing the internet on your iPhone or iPad.

• Apple Watch
• Accessories
• Digital Magazine – Subscribe
• Digital Magazine – Info
• Smart Answers
• 11th-gen iPad
• New AirPods
• Best Mac antivirus
• Best Mac VPN

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn't affect our editorial independence .

How to use Safari on a Mac

Safari is the web browser app bundled with all Macs as part of macOS. You don’t have to use it – if you prefer to use Chrome or Firefox, for example, you can install those apps for your web surfing needs. But in our experience, Safari is a good option – and as you can see from our round-up of best web browser apps for the Mac , it’s pretty much the best you can get.

If you are new to Safari this article will help you find your way around the app. And if you are a seasoned Safari user we will reveal a few Safari tips and tricks that you might not know, including some of the fab new features in Safari 11, the latest version of Safari for Mac.

If you’d like to read about using Safari on the iPad or iPhone, read this .

How to get the latest version of Safari for Mac

First things first. You will want to make sure you have the latest version of Safari. At the time of writing the most up-to-date version is Safari 11.1.

Here’s how to find out which version of Safari you are running:

• Open Safari.
• Click on Safari > About Safari in the menu.
• The resulting window will reveal the version number.

As long as your copy of MacOS – the Mac operating system – is up to date your copy of Safari should be because Safari is bundled as part of an operating system update.

However, you don’t have to be using the latest version of macOS to have the latest version of Safari. Apple is bundling Safari 11 with High Sierra, Sierra and El Capitan versions of the Mac OS. If you need to update your version of MacOS read this: how to update your Mac operating system software .

Now that you have the latest version of Safari you can start enjoying some of the new features that we will discuss below.

Safari basics

If you are a surfing novice you might want to familiarise yourself with these tips.

We’ll start off with the basics, such as how to get into Safari, how to search, and other useful pointers. You can skip this bit if you aren’t a Safari beginner, there are plenty of tips below that you might find useful.

You can find Safari in the Dock at the bottom of your Mac’s screen. Its icon looks like a compass.

How to use Safari

The big bar at the top of the Safari window is where you can enter a website URL or a search term to either take you directly to a website, or to a list of pages that match your query.

It will automatically search in Google (but you can change it so it defaults to another search engine).

You rarely have to enter a complete URL for a website. Once you have visited a site once you only need to type a few letters of its name and it will autofill the rest of the URL.

For example, type: ‘Face’ and it will autofill the rest of the URL and when you press enter it will take you straight to Facebook.

How to make it easy to find your favourite sites in Safari

There are lots of ways of making it easy to get to websites you frequently visit.

When you open a new tab (see below for details of how to do that) you will see your Favourites view including Frequently Visited Sites. You could also choose to see a Top Sites view, set a Homepage, just see an empty page, or have the Same Page show up. These are all options you can access in Safari > Preferences > General. Just click on the menu beside New tabs open with.

If you choose the Top Sites view you can adjust it to show 6, 12 or 24 sites. To add and remove Top Sites hover over the preview until you see an x and a pin icon. Pin those sites you wish to keep and click x on those you don’t image you will want to find again. The sites that appear in Top Sites tend to be those you visit most frequently.

You can choose one of these views for every time you open a new Safari window.

How to Pin a site in Safari

In Safari you can also ‘Pin’ favourite sites to the menu bar – a simple way of adding a shortcut to Facebook, YouTube or any site you visit frequently.

When you Pin a site you will see a small icon representing that site on the left of your tabs.

To Pin a particular web page right- or control-click on the tab and choose Pin Tab. Then it’s very easy to go straight to that site.

Using tabs in Safari

Back to tabs. You can open multiple tabs in a Safari window, this means that rather than having a different Safari window open for every website you are on, you can just have one Safari window open and multiple pages accessible through that.

To open a new tab press Command + T.

There are two ways that you can see a preview of the different tabs you have open:

• You can see a short summary of the name of the web page on the tabs themselves. This might be sufficient if you only have one or two tabs open, but once you have more than eight you’ll probably find the summary is too short to be useful.
• Or, you can click on the icon that looks like two boxes on the right of the search/URL box. This will show a thumbnail view of all the web pages you have open.

While we’re on the subject of Tabs, you can close a single tab just by hovering over the tab and clicking on the x that shows up in the corner of that tab.

It’s also possible to close all but one tab. Just hold down the Option/Alt key when you click on the x to get rid of all the other tabs that are open, except for the page on that tab.

How to tell which Safari tabs are playing audio

Not everyone wants to surf the web in silence though. There is lots of very worthy audio and video content available on the web and no doubt many surfers wouldn’t want to miss out on that.

The problem is when you have multiple web pages open and more than one of them is blaring out audio.

Luckily there is another Safari tip to fix that.

You can identify which of your open tabs is playing audio by the speaker symbol that appears in the far right of the Safari tab associated with that web page.

It’s possible to mute the audio with a single click on the speaker symbol without even opening the tab.

And if more than one Safari webpage is playing audio you can choose to mute them all at once. Just click on the speaker symbol in the URL bar and choose Mute all Tabs.

Alternatively, you can Option/Alt-click on the speaker icon of the tab you do wish to listen to and mute the audio on all the other tabs.

How to reopen all windows from the last session

Here’s another useful tip. You can easily reopen all the tabs you had open last time you were using Safari.

Click History > Reopen All Windows from Last Session to quickly recover all the windows you were recently looking at. You might also find this helpful: How to export bookmarks from Chrome to Safari

How to show the full URL in Safari

Another handy Safari tip. In Yosemite Safari stopped showing the whole URL – a feature designed to help avoid users being taken in by phishing scams, wherein the URL is obfuscated. In other words, if you’re visiting https://macworld.co.uk/this/page/that/page then all you’ll see in the address bar is macworld.co.uk.

If this isn’t what you want, perhaps you want to see the full URL of the article you are reading, you can change things so that the whole URL is shown.

Open Safari’s preferences dialog box (Cmd+,) then click the Advanced icon and put a check alongside Show Full Website Address.

How to change how you view websites in Safari

One of our favourite features in Safari 11 is the extra control we have over the web. You can tweak the settings of specific websites so that they suit you for example.

How to change the font size on a website

You can tweak your settings so that when you visit a specific site the images and text are bigger – perfect if you are frustrated to find that the text on a favourite website is a bit too small for your eyes.

Here’s how to enlarge (or reduce) the font size on a particular website so that it stays that size whether you visit:

• Go to Safari > Preferences.
• Click on the Websites tab.
• Click on Page Zoom.
• Find the site you want to customise (any site you have open or have recently visited will be listed here).
• Choose a number bigger or smaller than 100% depending on how large you want the text and images to be.

You can do this on a per website basis, or if you frequently find that the text on websites is too small for you, you can choose to default to the percentage that suits you wherever you go on the web. Note that not all websites are created the same so some will naturally have larger type than others.

To choose the zoom percentage for all websites, click in the drop down box beside “When visiting other websites”.

Another benefit of having access to these controls that allow you to change the way you view the web is that it enables you to stop seeing ads and auto-playing videos. We’ll look at that below.

How to stop ads and auto-playing videos in Safari

Another enticing feature of Safari is the way you can choose to adjust the settings so that you never see another ad or auto-playing video again. We’ll look at how to do that next.

How to stop autoplay audio and video in Safari

Perhaps you are frustrated by auto-playing video blaring out every time you visit a website.

With Safari 11 you can disable autoplay video, so you will never again have to hear voices while you are browsing the web. Here’s what to do:

• Open the offending website.
• Click on Safari > Settings for This Website (or right-click the URL box and select Settings for This Website).
• Allow All Auto-Play
• Stop Media with Sound
• Never Auto-Play

Stop Media with Sounds is the default option, and it will essentially stop any video from starting if the sound is set to be on. If the video is set to play silently it will still run but you won’t hear it, unless you choose to.

If you would rather not let auto-playing video play, you can choose Never Auto-Play.

Remember that if you adjust the settings this way it will only apply to autoplay videos on that website. If you’d like to never see an autoplaying video again follow these steps:

• Go to Safari > Preferences and click on Websites.

And there is an option below to choose the same settings “When visiting other websites”.

We have a complete tutorial that explains how to use this feature here: How to stop autoplay video in Safari & Chrome on Mac .

We also cover how to stop Safari asking to use your location data here .

How to stop seeing ads on websites in Safari

While ads pay a part of our wage, we realise that some ads can really reduce the enjoyment of web browsing. Usually these are ads that have something wrong with the way they have been coded and aren’t behaving as intended, or even worse they are spam ads that have crept onto the ad networks. We are honestly as frustrated as you are!

One of the big changes Apple bought to Safari 11 was the ability to really manage the ads that you see – this was part of Apple’s effort to make the web work better. Effectively, if Apple can remove ads that aren’t behaving as intended and are jamming up page loading times and the like, then Safari will perform quicker, which means that the surfer has a better time surfing.

There are a few ways you can take advantage of these anti-ad related features in Safari 11.

One way is to choose to surf the web – or certain pages – in Reader mode.

Reader mode is a way of viewing webpages that Apple introduced back in 2010 in Safari 5. Reader displays just the text and images from a webpage, without any of the other page furniture. We think it is a bit like reading a Word document or a PDF. The feature hasn’t changed much over the years, but in Safari 11 it’s became possible to choose for a site to always be viewed in Reader Mode.

First, here’s how to view a site in Reader mode:

• Click on the stack of lines to the left of the URL bar.
• This will automatically change the webpage to Reader view.
• Click on the stack of lines to turn Reader view off.

It’s worth checking how a site appears in this mode before switching over to it because not all sites implement it particularly well (sometimes you will find that an article stops abruptly because only one page has been carried into Reader view). Some sites don’t have a Reader view at all (such as Apple, for example).

And here is how to customise your settings so that whenever you visit that site the pages are viewed in Reader mode:

• Click on Reader.
• Find the site you want to customise (any site you have open, or have recently visited will be listed here).
• Toggle the drop-down menu beside that site to On.

A quicker way to do this is to right-click or control-click on the stack of lines beside the URL and choose Use Reader Automatically.

Or, as long as you are on the website you wish to change the setting for, you can click on Safari > Settings for this Website, and choose Use Reader When Available.

How to surf in private using Safari

Another useful feature in Safari is the option to use a private browsing window. This doesn’t just keep your browsing habits private from someone else who has access to your Mac, it also means that you are incognito – in other words even the websites you are visiting don’t have any information about you.

Go to Safari > File > New Private Window (or shift-cmd-n). You can tell if a window is private because the search bar will be grey. Any new tabs you open in this window will be private.

Alternatively, to open a Private Browsing window you can click shift, command and N.

You can tell it’s a private window because the URL field will be greyed out.

Hold down Option/Alt while picking Private Browsing to quickly switch it on and bypass the ‘Do you want to switch on Private Browsing?’ alert window if you happen to see it frequently. We have a complete guide to private browsing on Safari here .

For even more privacy, you can choose to always search with privacy-obsessed DuckDuckGo as your default search engine. Go to Safari > Preferences > Search, and click on the Search Engine. Then select Duck Duck Go from the Search Engine dropdown list. You can choose from Google, Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo.

How to delete your histroy in Safari

If you didn’t search using a private browsing window you can still delete your history and evidence of what you were up to.

• Click on History.
• Scroll down and click on Clear History.
• You can choose to clear history for Today, the last hour, today and yesterday, or all history.
• You’ll see a warning that Clearing history will remove related cookies and other website data. Basically this is warning you that if you go ahead and Clear History you may find that you have to log onto websites, or shopping cart information may disappear.
• If you are happy with that then click on Clear history.

We have a complete tutorial all about how to delete your browser history on a Mac here .

How to delete cookies in Safari

Another new feature that came in Safari 11 was the introduction of privacy protection, a feature that’ll stop those annoying Amazon adverts showing you products after you’ve bought them.

Safari actively tries to block the cross-site tracking data that powers targeted adverts. While it won’t completely stop it, it should have a noticeable effect when using the browser.

According to Apple this isn’t an attempt to block ads, but rather to protect your privacy.

This means that you should no longer need to delete cookies if you want to stop seeing targeted ads (cookies have also been known to affect the price for goods if you have previously shown an interest in a product so deleting cookies could avoid such practices).

If you want to go a step further regarding cookies in Safari 11 there are some preferences changes you can make.

• Beside Website tracking click on Ask websites not to track me.
• Beside Cookies and website data click on Block all cookies.

If you aren’t using Safari 11 you can still delete cookies.

• Click on the Privacy tab.
• Click on Remove All Website Data…

Here’s how to add your own background image to Safari.

Author: Karen Haslam , Managing Editor

Karen has worked on both sides of the Apple divide, clocking up a number of years at Apple's PR agency prior to joining Macworld more than two decades ago. Karen's career highlights include interviewing Apple's Steve Wozniak and discussing Steve Jobs’ legacy on the BBC. Having edited the U.K. print and online editions of Macworld for many years, more recently her focus has been on SEO and evergreen content as well product recommendations and buying advice on Macworld.com.

Recent stories by Karen Haslam:

• How to clear disk space on a Mac
• How to get Apple Music for free
• How to type euro symbol, pound sign, €, Æ, #, @, © & @ on a Mac

• Help Center
• Google Account
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• Submit feedback
• Improve your Google Account

Signing in with an Apple device

Need more help, try these next steps:.

• Search the community and support articles
• Community Center
• Discuss the Microsoft Community site
• Search Community member

Ask a new question

How to sign in using Safari on a Mac

Report abuse.

Reported content has been submitted​

Was this reply helpful? Yes No

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

Thanks for your feedback.

Replies (5) 

Question info.

• Site bug or problem
• Norsk Bokmål
• Ελληνικά
• Русский
• עברית
• العربية
• ไทย
• 한국어
• 中文(简体)
• 中文(繁體)
• 日本語

Want to highlight a helpful answer? Upvote!

Did someone help you, or did an answer or User Tip resolve your issue? Upvote by selecting the upvote arrow. Your feedback helps others!  Learn more about when to upvote >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Safari - google keeps asking to sign

Whenever i open a safari page on my iphone 7 i can the following pop up. I have tried changing mu password i have cleared any data as suggested , no luck

how do i get rid of this annoying pop up

Posted on Sep 28, 2020 6:44 AM

Posted on Oct 4, 2020 4:59 PM

It looks like you're having a prompt to agree and sign in to your Google account and we want to help.

From what you are showing, you are using private browsing on your iPhone. Private browsing isn't going to accept cookies, so you will need to turn that off first.

"How to turn off Private Browsing

• Open Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch.

• Tap Private, then tap Done."

Turn Private Browsing on or off on your iPhone or iPod touch - Apple Support

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities.

Similar questions

• Why is my safari making me sign in to google everytime I use it Every time I use my safari, I’m having to sign in to google first, this is becoming very inconvenient. A long message crops up first and then tells me to sign in. It has happens on my linked iPad and now continually on my iPhone. 11786 1
• iPad ask to confirm cookies and to login every time I open Safari Hey! Hopefully some of you can answer me. In the newest version of Safari I have to accept cookies and login to account's every time I shut down my iPad or close Safari. Is there a new setting or is there a problem with this version. I have IOS 15.7 and newest Safari. Thanks for the help [Re-Titled by Moderator] 615 1
• Google sign in request every time I go to a website in Safari In safari when I go to a website I continually get Sign in to Google and it is very annoying to constantly have to deal with this. I have tried everything I have seen on this site and others, and cannot stop it. Any suggestions? 548 2

Loading page content

Page content loaded

Oct 4, 2020 4:59 PM in response to rnaz85

Oct 30, 2020 11:59 AM in response to Chivthomthom

I changed to non private mode and havnt had that same problem on that. But it happens on the private mode and i also enabled cookies etc etc

tried all the solutions suggested,

didnt make any difference.

Oct 31, 2020 10:17 AM in response to rnaz85

This is normal behavior in private browsing mode. There's nothing you can do to stop that. Cookies are not saved from private browsing sessions.

Oct 30, 2020 11:25 AM in response to chuck_3rd

I have this problem too and I am not using private mode and have cookies enabled. This has only just started happening this week. Its driving me crazy! Any ideas?

Blazing fast. Incredibly private.

Safari is the best way to experience the internet on all your Apple devices. It brings robust customisation options, powerful privacy protections, and optimises battery life — so you can browse how you like, when you like. And when it comes to speed, it’s the world’s fastest browser. 1

Performance

More battery. less loading..

With a blazing-fast JavaScript engine, Safari is the world’s fastest browser. 1 It’s developed to run specifically on Apple devices, so it’s geared to make the most out of your battery life and deliver long-lasting power.

Increased performance

We’re always working to make the fastest desktop browser on the planet even faster.

Improved power efficiency

Safari lets you do more online on a single charge.

Up to 4 hours more streaming videos compared with Chrome 3

Up to 17 hours of video streaming 3

Best-in-class browsing

Safari outperforms both Mac and PC browsers in benchmark after benchmark on the same Mac. 4

• JetStream /
• MotionMark /
• Speedometer /

JavaScript performance on advanced web applications. 4

Safari vs other Mac browsers

Safari on macOS

Chrome on macOS

Edge on macOS

Firefox on macOS

Safari vs Windows 11 browsers

Chrome on Windows 11

Edge on Windows 11

Firefox on Windows 11

Rendering performance of animated content. 4

Web application responsiveness. 4

4K video streaming

See your favourite shows and films in their best light. Safari supports in-browser 4K HDR video playback for YouTube, Netflix and Apple TV+. 5 And it runs efficiently for longer-lasting battery life.

Privacy is built in.

Online privacy isn’t just something you should hope for — it’s something you should expect. That’s why Safari comes with industry-leading privacy protection technology built in, including Intelligent Tracking Prevention that identifies trackers and helps prevent them from profiling or following you across the web. Upgrading to iCloud+ gives you even more privacy protections, including the ability to sign up for websites and services without having to share your personal email address.

Intelligent Tracking Prevention

Safari stops trackers in their tracks.

What you browse is no one’s business but your own. Safari has built‑in protections to help stop websites and data-collection companies from watching and profiling you based on your browsing activity. Intelligent Tracking Prevention uses on-device intel­ligence to help prevent cross-site tracking and stops known trackers from using your IP address — making it incredibly difficult to learn who you are and what you’re interested in.

Privacy Report

Safari makes it simple to see how your privacy is protected on all the websites you visit. Click Privacy Report in the Safari menu for a snapshot of cross-site trackers currently prevented from profiling you on the website you’re visiting. Or view a weekly Privacy Report to see how Safari protects you as you browse over time.

Customisation

Putting the you in url..

Safari is more customisable than ever. Organise your tabs into Tab Groups so it’s easy to go from one interest to the next. Set a custom background image and fine-tune your browser window with your favourite features — like Reading List, Favourites, iCloud Tabs and Siri Suggestions. And third-party extensions for iPhone, iPad and Mac let you do even more with Safari, so you can browse the way you want across all your devices.

Safari Profiles allow you to separate your history, extensions, Tab Groups, favourites, cookies and more. Quickly switch between profiles for topics you create, like Personal and Work.

Web apps let you save your favourite websites to the Dock on Mac and to the Home Screen on iPhone and iPad. A simplified toolbar and separate settings give you an app-like experience.

Safari Extensions add functionality to your browser to help you explore the web the way you want. Find and add your favourite extensions in the dedicated Safari category on the App Store.

Save and organise your tabs in the way that works best for you. Name your Tab Groups, edit them, and switch between them across devices. You can also share Tab Groups — making planning your next family trip or group project easier and more collaborative.

Smart Tools

Designed to help your work flow..

Built-in tools create a browsing experience that’s far more immersive, intuitive and immediate. Get detailed information about a subject in a photo with just a click, select text within any image, instantly translate an entire web page, and quickly take notes wherever you are on a site — without having to switch apps.

Notes is your go-to app to capture any thought. And with the Quick Note feature, you can instantly jot down ideas as you browse websites without having to leave Safari.

Translation

Translate entire web pages with a single click. You can also get translations for text in images and paused video without leaving Safari.

Interact with text in any image or paused video on the web using functions like copy and paste, translate, and lookup. 6

Visual Look Up

Quickly learn more about landmarks, works of art, breeds of dog and more, with only a photo or an image you find online. And easily lift the subject of an image from Safari, remove its background, and paste it into Messages, Notes or other apps.

Surf safe and sound.

Strong security protections in Safari help keep you safe. Passkeys introduce a safer way to sign in. iCloud Keychain securely stores and autofills passkeys and passwords across all your devices. Safari also notifies you when it encounters suspicious websites and prevents them from loading. Because it loads each web page in a separate process, any harmful code is always confined to a single browser tab so it won’t crash the entire application or access your data. And Safari automatically upgrades sites from HTTP to the more secure HTTPS when available.

Passkeys introduce a more secure and easier way to sign in. No passwords required.

Passkeys are end-to-end encrypted and safe from phishing and data leaks, and they are stronger than all common two-factor authentication types. Thanks to iCloud Keychain, they work across all your Apple devices, and they even work on non-Apple devices.

Learn more about passkeys

Apple Pay and Wallet make checkout as easy as lifting a finger.

Apple Pay is the easiest and most secure way to shop on Safari — allowing you to complete transactions with Face ID or Touch ID on your iPhone or iPad, with Touch ID on your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, or by double-clicking the side button on your Apple Watch.

Learn more about Apple Pay

With AutoFill, you can easily fill in your previously saved credit card information from the Wallet app during checkout. Your credit card details are never shared, and your transactions are protected with industry-leading security.

Same Safari. Different device.

Safari works seamlessly and syncs your passwords, bookmarks, history, tabs and more across Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple Watch. And when your Mac, iOS or iPadOS devices are near each other, they can automatically pass what you’re doing in Safari from one device to another using Handoff. You can even copy images, video or text from Safari on your iPhone or iPad, then paste into another app on your nearby Mac — or vice versa.

When you use Safari on multiple devices, your tabs carry over from one Apple device to another. So you can search, shop, work or browse on your iPhone, then switch to your iPad or Mac and pick up right where you left off.

Save web pages you want to read later by adding them to your Reading List. Then view them on any of your iCloud-connected devices — even if you’re not connected to the internet.

iCloud Keychain securely stores your usernames, passkeys, passwords and credit card numbers, and keeps them up to date on your trusted devices. So you can easily sign in to your favourite websites — as well as apps on iOS and iPadOS — and quickly make online purchases.

Designed for developers.

Deep WebKit integration between Mac hardware and macOS allows Safari to deliver the fastest performance and the longest battery life of any browser on the platform, while supporting modern web standards for rich experiences in the browser. WebKit in macOS Sonoma includes optimisations that enable even richer browsing experiences, and give developers more control over styling and layout — allowing for more engaging content.

Make Safari your default browser

Customise your start page, view your browsing privacy report, monitor your saved passwords, use apple pay in safari, view your tabs across all your devices, read the safari user guide, get safari support.

• Generative AI
• Office Suites
• Collaboration Software
• Productivity Software
• Augmented Reality
• Emerging Technology
• Remote Work
• Artificial Intelligence
• Operating Systems
• IT Leadership
• IT Management
• IT Operations
• Cloud Computing
• Computers and Peripherals
• Data Center
• Enterprise Applications
• Vendors and Providers
• Enterprise Buyer’s Guides
• United States
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• New Zealand
• Newsletters
• Foundry Careers
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Copyright Notice
• Member Preferences
• About AdChoices
• E-commerce Affiliate Relationships
• Your California Privacy Rights

Our Network

• Network World

How to go incognito in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari

While incognito mode in any of the big four web browsers offers a measure of privacy, it doesn’t completely hide your tracks online. here’s how the feature works in each browser, and how to use it..

Private browsing. Incognito . Privacy mode.

Web browser functions like those trace their roots back more than a decade, and the feature — first found in a top browser in 2005 — spread quickly as one copied another, made tweaks and minor improvements.

But privacy-promising labels can be treacherous. Simply put, going “ incognito ” is as effective in guarding online privacy as witchcraft is in warding off a common cold.

That’s because private browsing is intended to wipe local traces of where you’ve been, what you’ve searched for, the contents of forms you’ve filled. It’s meant to hide, and not always conclusively at that, your tracks from others with access to the personal computer. That’s it.

How to keep web browsing private

Google chrome’s incognito mode, microsoft edge’s private browsing, mozilla firefox’s private browsing mode, apple’s safari private windows.

At their most basic, these features promise that they won’t record visited sites to the browsing history, save cookies that show you’ve been to and logged into sites, or remember credentials like passwords used during sessions. But your traipses through the web are still traceable by Internet providers – and the authorities who serve subpoenas to those entities – employers who control the company network and advertisers who follow your every footstep.

To end that cognitive dissonance, most browsers have added more advanced privacy tools , generically known as “anti-trackers,” which block various kinds of bite-sized chunks of code that advertisers and websites use to trace where people go in attempts to compile digital dossiers or serve targeted advertisements.

Although it might seem reasonable that a browser’s end game would be to craft a system that blends incognito modes with anti-tracking, it’s highly unlikely. Using either private browsing or anti-tracking carries a cost: site passwords aren’t saved for the next visit or sites break under the tracker scrubbing. Nor are those costs equal. It’s much easier to turn on some level of anti-tracking by default than it would be to do the same for private sessions, as evidenced by the number of browsers that do the former without complaint while none do the latter.

Private browsing will, by necessity, always be a niche, as long as sites rely on cookies for mundane things like log-ins and cart contents.

But the mode remains a useful tool whenever the browser — and the computer it’s on — are shared. To prove that, we’ve assembled instructions and insights on using the incognito features — and anti-tracking tools — offered by the top four browsers: Google Chrome , Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge , Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari.

How to go incognito in Google Chrome

Although incognito may be a synonym to some users for any browser’s private mode, Google gets credit for grabbing the word as the feature’s snappiest name when it launched the tool in late 2008, just months after Chrome debuted.

The easiest way to open an Incognito window is with the keyboard shortcut combination Ctrl-Shift-N (Windows) or Command-Shift-N (macOS).

Another way is to click on the menu on the upper right – it’s the three vertical dots – and select New Incognito Window from the list.

Open a new Incognito window in Chrome using keyboard shortcuts or from the menu (1) by choosing New Incognito window (2).

The new Incognito window can be recognized by the dark background and the stylized “spy” icon just to the left of the three-dots menu. Chrome also reminds users of just what Incognito does and doesn’t do each time a new window is opened. The message may get tiresome for regular Incognito users, but it may also save a job or reputation; it’s important that users remember Incognito doesn’t prevent ISPs, businesses, schools and organizations from knowing where customers, workers, students, and others went on the web or what they searched for.

Each time a new Incognito window is opened, Chrome reminds users what Incognito doesn’t save. As of Chrome 83, it also puts a toggle on the screen for blocking third-party cookies.

Incognito’s introductory screen also displays a toggle — it’s on by default — along with text that states third-party cookies will be blocked while in the privacy mode. Although cookies are never saved locally as long as the user stays in Incognito, websites have been able to track user movements from site to site while within Incognito . Such tracking might be used, for example, to display ads to a user visiting multiple sites in Incognito. This third-party cookie blocking, which halts such behavior, debuted in Chrome 83 in May 2020.

Google has been experimenting with new language on Chrome’s Incognito introductory page, but it’s yet to make it to the desktop browser. In the Canary build of Chrome on Android, however, the intro now outlines “What Incognito does” and “What Incognito doesn’t do,” to make the mode’s capabilities somewhat clearer to the user. (Some have speculated that the changes were made in reaction to a still-ongoing class-action lawsuit file in 2020 that alleged Google continued to track users’ online behavior and movements in Incognito.)

Once a tab in Incognito has been filled with a website, Chrome continues to remind users that they’re in Incognito by the dark background of the address bar and window title.

A link on an existing page can be opened directly into Incognito by right-clicking the link, then choosing Open Link in Incognito Window from the resulting menu.

What Incognito looks like after pulling up a website. Note the “spy” icon at the right of the address bar.

To close an Incognito window, shutter it like any other Chrome window by clicking the X in the upper right corner (Windows) or the red dot in the upper left (macOS).

Pro tip: Google has been working on locking Incognito mode tabs on mobile devices — the tabs unlocked with built-in biometric features — so that others can’t get a look at the privacy mode’s content simply by picking up another’s phone or tablet. Google is currently rolling out this feature in Chrome 92 on iOS, and still testing it in preview builds of Chrome for Android. No word on whether desktop Chrome will get something similar.

How to privately browse in Microsoft Edge

borrowed the name of its private browsing mode, InPrivate, from Internet Explorer (IE), the finally-being-retired legacy browser. InPrivate appeared in IE in March 2009, about three months after Chrome’s Incognito and three months before Firefox’s privacy mode. When Edge was first released in 2015 and then relaunched as a clone of Chrome in January 2020, InPrivate was part of the package, too.

At the keyboard, the combination of Ctrl-Shift-N (Windows) or Command-Shift-N (macOS) opens an InPrivate window.

A slower way to get there is to click on the menu at the upper right — it’s three dots arranged horizontally — and choose New InPrivate Window from the menu.

Like other browser, Edge will take you incognito from the menu (1) when you pick New InPrivate window (2).

Edge does a more thorough job of explaining what its private browsing mode does and doesn’t do than any of its rivals, with on-screen paragraphs dedicated to describing what data the browser collects in InPrivate and how the strictest additional anti-tracking setting can be called on from within the mode. In addition, Edge 92 — the current version as of this writing — uses the more informal “What Incognito does” and “What Incognito doesn’t do” language on its InPrivate introductory screen, something desktop Chrome hasn’t yet gotten to.

Microsoft’s browser also well marks InPrivate when the mode is operating: a blue-colored oval marked “In Private” to the right of the address bar combines with a full-black screen to make sure users know where they’re at.

The white-on-blue oval at the upper right tells you Edge is in InPrivate mode.

It’s also possible to launch an InPrivate session by right-clicking a link within Edge and selecting Open in InPrivate Window . That option is grayed out when already in a private browsing session but using Open Link in New Tab does just that within the current InPrivate frame.

To end InPrivate browsing, simply shut the window by clicking the X in the upper right corner (Windows) or click the red dot at the upper left (macOS).

Although Microsoft based the relaunched Edge on Chromium, the same open-source project that comes up with the code to power Chrome, the Redmond, Wash. company has integrated anti-tracking into its browser, something Chrome has yet to do. Dubbed “Tracking Prevention,” it works both in Edge’s standard and InPrivate modes.

To set Tracking Prevention, choose Settings from the three-ellipses menu at the right, then at the next page, pick Privacy, Search and Services . Choose one of the three options — Basic, Balanced or Strict — and make sure the toggle for Tracking prevention is in the “on” position. If you want InPrivate to always default to the harshest anti-tracking — not a bad idea — toggle Always use “Strict” tracking prevention when browsing InPrivate to “on.”

Toggle Always use Strict to the ‘on’ position and InPrivate will apply the most stringent anti-tracking even though Edge’s standard mode is set to, say, Balanced.

Pro tip: To open Edge with InPrivate — rather than first opening Edge in standard mode, then launching InPrivate — right-click the Edge icon in the Windows taskbar and select New InPrivate Window from the list. There is no similar one-step way to do this in macOS.

How to do private browsing in Mozilla Firefox

After Chrome trumpeted Incognito, browsers without something similar hustled to catch up. Mozilla added its take — dubbed Private Browsing — about six months after Google, in June 2009, with Firefox 3.5.

From the keyboard, a private browsing session can be called up using the combination Ctrl-Shift-P (Windows) or Command-Shift-P (macOS).

Alternately, a private window will open from the menu at the upper right of Firefox — three short horizontal lines — after selecting New private window .

Opening a private browsing window is as simple as choosing New Private Window (2) from the Firefox menu (1).

A private session window is marked by the purple “mask” icon in the title bar of the Firefox frame. In Windows, the icon is to the left of the minimize/maximize/close buttons; on a Mac, the mask squats at the far right of the title bar. Unlike Chrome and Edge, Firefox does not color-code the top components of the browser window to signify the user is in privacy mode.

Like other browsers, Firefox warns users that private browsing is no cure-all for privacy ills but is limited in what it blocks from being saved during a session. “While this doesn’t make you anonymous to websites or your internet service provider, it makes it easier to keep what you do online private from anyone else who uses this computer,” the caution reads.

Firefox reminds users that while a private session doesn’t save searches or browsing histories, it doesn’t cloak them in complete anonymity.

(Firefox also uses the Private Browsing introductory screen to shill the Mozilla VPN service, a $5 to $10 per month virtual private network that can, like other VPNs, hide your actual IP address from destination servers.)

A link can be opened into a Firefox Private Window by right-clicking the link, then choosing Open Link in New Private Window from the menu.

To close a Private Window, shut it down just as one would any Firefox window by clicking the X in the upper right corner (Windows) or the red dot in the upper left (macOS).

Notable is that Firefox’s private browsing mode is accompanied by the browser’s superb “Enhanced Tracking Protection,” a suite of tracker blocking tools that stymie all sorts of ad-and-site methods for identifying users, then watching and recording their online behavior. While the earliest version of this was offered only inside Private Windows, the expanded technologies also work within standard mode.

Because Enhanced Tracking Protection is enabled by default within Firefox, it doesn’t matter which of its settings — Standard, Strict or Custom — is selected as far as private browsing goes; everything that can be blocked will be blocked.

The shield appears in the address bar to note what trackers were blocked by Firefox in a Private Window. Clicking on the icon brings up an accounting of what was barred.

Pro tip: As of Firefox 91, Private Browsing sessions take place over the more secure HTTPS, not the once-standard HTTP protocol. Users don’t need to do anything: The new HTTPS-only policy is on by default. (If the destination site doesn’t support HTPPS, Firefox will recognize this and go into fallback mode, connecting via HTTP instead.)

How to browse privately using Apple’s Safari

Chrome may get far more attention for its Incognito than any other browser — no surprise, since it’s by far the most popular browser on the planet — but Apple’s Safari was actually the first to introduce private browsing. The term private browsing was first bandied in 2005 to describe Safari 2.0 features that limited what was saved by the browser.

Side note: Early in private browsing, the label porn mode was often used as a synonym to describe what many writers and reporters assumed was the primary application of the feature. The term has fallen out of favor.

To open what Safari calls a Private Window on a Mac, users can do a three-key combination of Command-Shift-N , the same shortcut Chrome adopted. Otherwise, a window can be called up by selecting the File menu and clicking on New Private Window.

From the File menu (1), New Private Window (2) gets you started.

Safari tags each Private Window by darkening the address bar. It also issues a reminder of what it does — or more accurately — what it doesn’t do. “Safari will keep your browsing history private for all tabs of this window. After you close this window, Safari won’t remember the pages you visited, your search history or your AutoFill information,” the top-of-the-page note reads. The warning is more terse than those of other browsers and omits cautions about still-visible online activity.

The darkened address bar up at the top is the signal that this Safari window is for private browsing.

Like Firefox, Safari automatically engages additional privacy technologies, whether the user browses in standard or private mode. Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Protection (ITP), which kicked off in 2017 and has been repeatedly upgraded since, now blocks all third-party cookies, among other components advertisers and services use to track people as they bounce from one site to another. ITP is controlled by a single on-off switch — on is the default — found in Preferences under the Privacy icon. If the Website tracking: box is checked to mark Prevent cross-site tracking , ITP is on.

Switching on cross-site tracking enables Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Protection, which blocks a wide variety of bits advertisers try to use to follow you around the web while you’re using a Private Window

A link can be opened directly to a Private Window by right-clicking, then selecting Open Link in New Private Window . Close a Private Window just as any Safari window, by clicking the red dot in the upper left corner of the browser frame.

Pro tip: Once in a Safari Private Window, opening a new tab — either by clicking the + icon at the upper right or by using the Command-T key combo — omits the Private Browsing Enabled notice. (The darkened address bar remains as the sole indicator of a private browsing session.) Other browsers, such as Firefox, repeat their cautionary messages each time a tab is opened in an incognito session.

Related content

Windows 11 insider previews: what’s in the latest build, senators propose $32b on ai spending without firm regulatory oversight, meta signals the end of the road for workplace, there aren't nearly enough workers to support new us chip production, from our editors straight to your inbox.

Gregg Keizer covers Windows, Office, Apple/enterprise, web browsers, and web apps for Computerworld.

More from this author

What’s in the latest firefox update 93 improves smartblock, debuts sponsored search suggestions, microsoft lets windows 11 loose on the world, microsoft sets perpetual-license office 2021 prices, reveals new-feature list, most popular authors.

Show me more

Soon, you’ll control your iphone with a glance.

OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is leaving

Microsoft and OpenAI: BFFs, or soon-to-be frenemies?

Is AI crushing creativity, or creating mediocrity?

Why AI hallucinations are here to stay

Why tech workers are struggling to find jobs

Elon Musk lays off Supercharger team

How-To Geek

I tried browsing the web with safari 1.0, here's how it went.

Hands-on with Apple's first web browser.

Key Takeaways

• Safari 1.0 was released in 2003 to replace Internet Explorer on the Mac.
• It was lacking some features compared to other web browsers, but it was fast and minimalist.
• Safari 1.0 is not compatible with most modern websites.

Safari was introduced in 2003 as Apple's replacement for Internet Explorer on the Mac, and it has continued to evolve since then as the default browser on all Apple devices. Let's take a deep dive into the browser that started it all: Safari 1.0.

The first version of Safari was released on June 23rd, 2003 , following a public beta that reached nearly five million downloads. The initial version was an optional download for Macs running Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar , and it was later bundled with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther . Apple continued shipping Safari with every new Mac operating system, continuing to the present day with new releases of macOS.

Hello, Safari

Safari is a core system application on Mac computers, so you can't (easily) use older versions on newer operating systems that have a newer Safari version already installed. In the name of science, I fired up my trusty 1999 PowerMac G3, created a new drive partition, and installed a fresh copy of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. That release shipped with Safari version 1.1, so this isn't technically the first public version, but it's close enough.

Safari 1.0 is a far cry from modern versions of Apple's web browser, but there are some familiar interface elements. The top bar has the back, forward, reload, and bookmark buttons that are still present in today's web browsers, but the address bar and web search are two separate text fields.

Google Chrome helped popularize the idea of a combined address and search bar when it was released in 2009, but before that, most web browsers had the same split text fields. On that note, Google is the default search engine, and I didn't see an option anywhere to change it.

Safari 1.0 isn't just minimalist by today's standards. This new Mac OS X installation also came with Internet Explorer 5 for Mac, which has a much more cluttered design with a sidebar, status bar, and more buttons at the top of the window. You could click a button on the sidebar to hide most of that for distraction-free browsing, but Safari is less complicated out of the box.

Most of the other browsers from this time, like Opera, Netscape, and the Mozilla Application Suite, were similarly feature-packed. The first version of Firefox arrived in 2004, the year after Safari, with a simplified feature set and a focus on web browsing. There is support for tabbed browsing in Safari 1.0, but it's not enabled by default.

There's also a bookmarks manager for organizing your favorite sites and pages, accessible from the menu bar or the bookmarks button in the bookmarks bar. The default bookmarks are a fun look back at the early-2000s internet, with links to Amazon, PayPal, BBC News, MapQuest, Monster.com, and other sites.

The preferences panel has some options for how windows open, where to save files and pages, turning on tabbed browsing, managing plugins, and deleting browsing cookies. There's also an AutoFill feature that can fill in web forms with information from your Address Book.

I also noticed this early version of Safari doesn't have an Inspect Element option, or seemingly any other web development features. You can view the HTML source code for a page, but that's it.

Surf Like It's 2003

So, what can you actually do with Safari 1.0 in 2024? Well, not a lot. This is a twenty-year-old web rendering engine, with no support for modern HTML and CSS layout features, HTML5 video, or most JavaScript features. Every site that loads over HTTPS (SSL) shows security warnings or refuses to load at all.

The main Google home page works, but the search results use a broken mobile layout. CNN, Apple.com, Wikipedia, eBay, and BBC News don't load at all. Amazon made the browser freeze for about a minute, complete with the spinning beachball of death, then loaded a page with just text and no styling or images.

There are a few websites designed specifically for older browsers, though. The FrogFind search engine created by Action Retro on YouTube works well here, which downgrades modern sites to simpler text-based layouts.

FrogFind doesn’t always work well, but it does turn websites like Wikipedia from completely unusable to readable.

Looking Back at Tomorrow

You can’t use Safari 1.0 for typical web browsing anymore, but it’s still a fascinating look at Apple’s vision for the future of web browsing. It wasn’t a feature-packed internet suite, like Netscape and Mozilla, or a super-customizable application like Opera. It was a fast, simple, and focused web browser, built on top of the modern KHTML engine from KDE’s Konqueror project.

Even though Safari wasn’t a perfect experience in its early days, the response from Mac owners was generally positive. Macworld said in 2003 , “Safari loaded pages faster than Internet Explorer in four out of five tests — in some cases, almost twice as fast.” The review from CNET for the 1.0 release said, “We encountered only minor bugs, usually related to JavaScript errors, though less so than the beta versions. Overall, Safari performed well.”

Safari went on to serve as the default browser for the iPhone and iPad, and there was a short-lived Windows version starting in 2007 . Safari’s underlying WebKit engine has also helped shape the internet we know today. WebKit was used by Google Chrome for years until Google forked it to create the Blink engine , which is now used by Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Vivaldi, and other web browsers.

For now, though, I’m happy to get back to a functioning modern web browser.

If Safari isn't loading websites or quits on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

If you can't load a website or webpage, or Safari quits unexpectedly, follow these steps.

Connect to a different network

Try to load a website, like www.apple.com , using cellular data. If you don't have cellular data, connect to a different Wi-Fi network , then load the website.

If you're using a VPN (Virtual Private Network), check your VPN settings . If you have a VPN turned on, some apps or websites might block content from loading.

Restart your device

Turn off your device and turn it on again.

Restart your iPhone

Restart your iPad

Restart your iPod touch

Clear website data

You can clear website data occasionally to improve Safari performance.

Go to Settings > Safari.

Tap Clear History and Website Data.

Tap Clear History to confirm.

Turn on JavaScript

Turn on JavaScript if it's not already on.

Go to Settings > Safari > Advanced.

Turn on JavaScript.

Get more help

If the issue continues and only affects a certain website or webpage, check if you have Private Relay turned on. You can temporarily turn off Private Relay in iCloud Settings . If Safari still doesn't load websites and you tried all of these steps, contact the website developer for more help.

Explore Apple Support Community

Find what’s been asked and answered by Apple customers.

Contact Apple Support

Need more help? Save time by starting your support request online and we'll connect you to an expert.