preferenze safari

Safari User Guide

Change your homepage
Import bookmarks, history, and passwords
Make Safari your default web browser
Go to websites
Find what you’re looking for
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Use tabs for webpages
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Pay with Apple Pay
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Translate a webpage
Download items from the web
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Add passes to Wallet
Save part or all of a webpage
Print or create a PDF of a webpage
Customize a start page
Customize the Safari window
Customize settings per website
Zoom in on webpages
Get extensions
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Block pop-ups
Clear your browsing history
Browse privately
Autofill user name and password info
Prevent cross-site tracking
View a Privacy Report
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Change General preferences in Safari on Mac

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Exploring Safari’s preferences

Last week, for the sake of completeness, I took you on a tour of Safari—an application that you likely used to read the lesson. This week we’ll dig deeper and explore some of Safari’s most important preferences. To begin, choose Safari > Preferences .

The General tab is your gateway to choosing a default browser, selecting a search engine, and choosing what you see when you first launch Safari, and creating new windows and tabs. Here are the settings you’ll see:

Default web browser: Much as Apple would prefer that Safari launches whenever you click a link outside the browser, you can choose another browser such as Chrome or Firefox as the default instead. To do that, click the Default web browser pop-up menu. If you’ve installed another browser, its name should appear in the list. If it doesn’t, choose Select and then navigate to the browser you wish to use and click the Select button.

Default search engine: Safari uses Google by default for Web searches. But you can change that default to Bing or Yahoo by clicking this pop-up menu.

Safari opens with: Safari under Mountain Lion remembers the tabs and windows that were open when you last quit the browser. If you like, you can have those views saved and then opened when you next launch Safari. To do that, choose All windows from last session from this pop-up menu. Otherwise, Safari will open with a new window.

New windows open with: From this pop-up menu, you choose what Safari displays when you open a new window (or one is opened for you when you first launch it). By default you’re taken to Apple’s website, which is a nice bit of advertising for the company but may not be something you wish to see. If you choose Top Sites , you’ll see a grid that displays thumbnails of sites you visit frequently (or have just recently visited). Homepage takes you to the site entered in the Homepage field below, Empty Page displays a blank page with no Web address, Same Page displays the same page you have open in another window, and Bookmarks shows the page you’d see if you clicked the Bookmarks icon in Safari’s toolbar.

New tabs open with: The choices here match those found in the ‘New windows open with’ pop-up menu.

Homepage: If you’d like Safari to open to your Facebook page or your third-cousin’s blog, just enter that address in this field and choose Homepage from the New windows open with menu. Or, if you just can’t decide, cruise around the Web for awhile, and when you find a destination you like, click the Set to Current Page button.

Remove history items: Safari will, by default, keep track of the sites you’ve visited. It stores this information in its history. You can choose to delete this history at particular intervals—after a year, month, two weeks, one week, or a day. If you like, you can instead choose Manually and issue a command to empty it (something I’ll show you how to do in next week’s lesson).

Save downloaded files to: By default, Safari saves downloaded files to the Downloads folder, which you’ll find in your user folder. But you can ask Safari to download these files to any folder you like. Just click the menu and choose Select . In the sheet that appears, navigate to a folder you find more convenient and click Select .

Remove download list items: If you’d prefer that others using your account not see what you’ve downloaded (or if you’re a tidy person), you can choose to have items in the download list removed. This doesn’t throw away these items, it only removes them from the list—they remain in the Downloads folder (or wherever you’ve chosen to store these things). By default, you remove items by clicking the Downloads button at the top-right of the Safari window and then clicking Clear in the resulting menu. But you can instead choose When Safari Quits or Upon Successful Download from this menu, and Safari will follow your orders.

Open “safe” files after downloading: Safari has a good sense of which file types are naughty and which are nice. (Meaning which can be potentially malicious.) Check this option, and the nice files will open without your having to issue a command or double-click a file.

If you’re not using tabs—Safari’s way to open and access multiple webpages within a single window—now’s the time to start. Do so by choosing View > Show Tab Bar . Now let’s see how you can configure those tabs with Safari’s preferences.

Open pages in tabs Instead of windows: The main reason to use tabs is to avoid having multiple open windows clutter your screen. This setting helps in that it determines when tabs should appear. The default Automatically setting means that Safari will make every attempt to open a new site in a tab rather than a window. You can optionally choose to have new pages never or always appear in tabs.

Command-click opens a link in a new tab: The meaning here is clear. I point it out simply to suggest that you learn this helpful shortcut.

When a new tab or window opens, make it active: This preference is turned off by default and I leave it that way. I occasionally open multiple links within a page for later browsing by using the Command-key shortcut I just mentioned. If I enabled this option, I’d routinely be taken to the linked page in an active tab. I’d rather browse these tabs later.

Among Safari’s talents is the ability to fill in Web forms with particular kinds of information. With the current version of Safari, this includes your contact information (name, address, and phone number), names and passwords, and other form information (a customer number, for example). Within this preference, you can disable some of these options as well as edit them.

For instance, if when autofilling a form with your contact information you find that something is wrong—it’s using an old address, say, or some information is missing—click the Edit button in this preference to open your personal contact card in the Contacts application. Edit the contact to include the correct and complete information that autofill lacks.

Click the E dit button following ‘User names and passwords’, and you can choose to remove or expose selected passwords (something we’ll look at next). And if you click Edit next to the ‘Other forms’ option, you can choose to remove stored information for particular websites.

The Passwords preference is closely related to the Autofill preference we just looked at. When you visit a website that requires you to create a username and password, Safari will prompt you to save that information by default. If you choose to, that information will be stored in something called the keychain . This is OS X’s secure system for storing such data. When you click the Passwords preference, you’ll see the names of any sites you’ve stored usernames and passwords for. Along the left side of the window is the address of the site, the username follows to the right, and finally you see a series of dots, which represent your hidden password. (For security, the number of dots does not correspond to number of characters in your password.)

If you can’t recall a password and you need it for some other purpose (you want to enter it on your iPhone or iPad, for example), enable the Show passwords option. You’ll be prompted for your account password. Enter it, and all the passwords in this window will be exposed. Once you have the password you need, disable that option immediately. Waving your passwords around for all to see is a very bad idea.

It’s also within this window that you can choose to remove passwords. You can remove them all by clicking Remove All, or you can select individual passwords and remove them by clicking the Remove button. When you choose to remove a password, you’re not removing it from the keychain. Rather, you’re simply removing its autofill entry.

Rather than explaining every option in this preference, I’m going to issue a single suggestion: Leave the default settings as they are. These settings will work admirably for new users.

It’s within the Privacy preference that you limit how your data is tracked. The gist is this: Websites have the ability to plant small bits of data, called cookies, in your browser. These cookies can be very helpful. For example, a cookie might alert the site that you’ve been there before so it can present you with some information that would appeal directly to you. Or a cookie could preserve a particular view you prefer. But cookies can also be issued by advertisers to track your movements around the Web, which doesn’t thrill everyone.

If you like, you can remove all cookies by clicking the Remove All Website Data button. You’ll be asked to confirm that you really want to do this. Agree, and the cookies disappear. (I’ll tell you in a moment why you might not want to do this.) You can also take a gander at the cookies that are currently stored in Safari by clicking the Details button. Do this, and a sheet appears that lists each cookie. If you’d like to remove one, just select it and click the Remove button.

In the ‘Block cookies’ area below, you can choose how to deal with these cookies. By default, Safari will attempt to block cookies from other sites and from advertisers. You can also choose to accept any cookie thrown at you by choosing Always or reject all cookies by enabling the Never option. Note that if you choose Never, some sites won’t work properly because they require cookies. Netflix, for example, requires cookies so that it knows who you are and can present you with current information about your account and queue.

Websites may also ask you for location information. For instance, a shopping site may want to know where you are so that it can direct you to a local store. Using the Limit website access to location services option, you can choose how often you’re prompted for location information—once a day or once only. You can also deny any location information requests by enabling Deny without prompting .

Given the recent revelations about the government tracking our electronic movements, the ‘Website tracking’ option in this window now seems almost quaint. When you enable it, Safari will instruct websites you visit to not track you in any manner. However, they can ignore this request, as their cooperation is entirely voluntary. I switch it on—but then, I also believe in the Tooth Fairy. If you’re similarly naive, feel free to do the same.

Finally, you can prevent search engines from providing suggestions to you. When you enable this option and conduct a Web search (as I explained last week ), you won’t see a list of suggestions in the menu that appears below the address/search field.

Safari has some additional preferences, but most of them are unhelpful to new users. Deal with the ones I’ve explained, and you’ll be well on your way to using Safari effectively.

Next week: Safari tips and tricks

Author: Christopher Breen , Senior Editor

Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Customize Safari With These 10 Preferences

Check out Customize Safari With These 10 Preferences at YouTube for closed captioning and more options.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Customize Safari With These 10 Preferences”

hi Gary, any idea why "Safari opens with..." shows me only two choices? They are: "All windows from last session" and "All non-private windows from last session". I'm using v 14.0. Thanks

nick: If you have "Close windows when quitting an app" turned off in System Preferences, General, then those two options no longer make sense, so they are taken away.

Hi Gary, Do same instructions to set up "Safari opens with: All windows from last session" apply to MacBook Pro? MackBook Pro is my device. Have followed video instructions, tried w/ and w/o ticking "Close windows when quitting an app". Made sure MacBook Pro is up to date. When I open, then close Safari, it opens to new page w/ prior open windows not present. Since I have it set to open with Favorites, that is what I see; prior windows are not seen as open! Help!

Dolores: The Mac model doesn't matter. Not sure why it isn't working for you. Just check those settings and experiment.

Hi Gary, Got it! "All windows from last session" works if you select "Quit Safari" from drop down window. Does not work if you click on red circle with x. Thanks.

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How do you open up safari preferences on iPad . I keep getting the too many redirects page

How can I open the safari prefrences page on my iPad, I keep getting the too many redirects page

iPad Pro, iPadOS 14

Posted on Jun 21, 2021 10:33 AM

Posted on Jun 21, 2021 10:40 AM

Those instructions apply to Safari on a Mac only. They are not for iPad and will not work on an iPad.

To get to Safari Settings on an iPad, you open the Settings App, and scroll down to "Safari". Scroll down to Advanced, then on Website Data. However on iPad there is no option to delete data from a specific data. It's all or nothing.

See here for iPad specific suggestions: https://macreports.com/safari-cannot-open-the-page-because-too-many-redirects-occurred/

How to Change Safari Settings on iPhone or iPad

Last Updated: November 4, 2019 Tested

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 38,712 times. Learn more...

This wikiHow teaches you how to customize the behavior of the Safari web browser on your iPhone or iPad. If you're using iOS 13 or later, you now have the option to choose display options for individual websites in addition to making global changes.

Changing Web Preferences by Website

Changes you make with this method will only affect the currently-open website. If you want your preferences to affect all websites rather than just for those you customize, see the Changing Web Preferences for All Websites section instead.

Select Ask on a feature if you'd like to be asked each time the site tries to access the feature (default).
Select Deny if you never want the site to access the feature.
Select Allow to always allow the site to access the feature.

Changing Web Preferences for All Websites

Step 1 Open your iPhone or iPad's Settings icon.

It is also possible to customize these settings on a per-website basis. See this method to learn how.
Changing your web preferences using this method will not affect sites you've customized individually.

Step 4 Tap Page Zoom to adjust the default font size.

Select Ask on a feature if you'd like to be asked each time any site tries to access the feature (default).
Select Deny if you never want websites to access the feature.
Select Allow to always allow websites to access the feature.

Changing General Safari Settings

Use the sliders in the "IN SAFARI" section at the top to choose whether Siri has access to Safari.
Use the sliders in the "IN SEARCH" section to customize whether Safari options show when searching your iPhone/iPad or using the Shortcuts app.
Tap the back button when you're finished.

Step 4 Modify your default search preferences in the

Tap AutoFill to adjust which information appears automatically in form fields, such as your name, address, phone number, email, and credit card info.
Pop-up ads are blocked in Safari by default. If you'd like to see pop-up ads on websites, slide the "Block Pop-ups" switch to the Off (gray) position.
Tap Downloads to choose where to save files and media you download from websites. You'll have the option to choose a cloud storage service or your iPhone/iPad.

To allow sites and services to track your browsing anywhere on the web, slide the "Prevent Cross-Site Tracking" switch to the Off (gray) position. To retain your privacy, you can leave this switch in the On (green) position.
Cookies are used by websites to keep track of your visits, preferences, and login information (for sites that require username/password access). [2] X Research source The "Block All Cookies" switch is Off (gray) by default, but you can enable it by toggling it to the On (green) position.
Safari will display a warning message if a website you visit is deemed fraudulent in some way. If you don't want to see these messages, you can toggle the "Fraudulent Website Warning" switch to the Off (gray) position.
Adjust the "Check for Apple Pay" switch to reflect your desired Apple Pay behavior on all websites.

Step 8 Tap Advanced for advanced and experimental features.

Expert Q&A

About This Article

1. Go to a website in Safari. 2. Tap the Aa button. 3. Tap Website Settings . 4. Make your changes. 5. Tap Done . Did this summary help you? Yes No

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COMMENTS

Change preferences in Safari on Mac - Apple Support
Change preferences in Safari on Mac. Use Safari preferences to make browsing the internet work best for you. In the Safari app on your Mac, choose Safari > Preferences, then click a preference pane: General: Change your homepage, and choose what to see when you open a window or tab, how long to keep your browsing history, which bookmarks to ...
How to Change Your General Preferences on Safari: Mac + iOS
Do you want to increase your privacy on Safari or maybe make it more useful for you? To change your Safari preferences on an iOS device, you'll need to use your device's Settings app instead of the Safari app. On macOS computers, you can change the settings from Safari's Preferences menu.
Safari has no preferences tab under Safar… - Apple Community
Preferences in Safari There are quite a few tabs which Safari does not allow me to open or download information, and they state: "Safari cannot open this page". Which parameter or setting is causing this disturbance and how can I change it.
Change Advanced preferences in Safari on Mac - Apple Support
In the Safari app on your Mac, use Advanced preferences to increase accessibility, specify a style sheet, change the default encoding, and turn on the Develop menu. To change these preferences, choose Safari > Preferences, then click Advanced.
Change General preferences in Safari on Mac - Apple Support
In the Safari app on your Mac, use General preferences to choose the page that appears when you open a new window or tab, to choose how to handle downloads, and more. To change these preferences, choose Safari > Preferences, then click General.
Exploring Safari's preferences | Macworld
Safari has some additional preferences, but most of them are unhelpful to new users. Deal with the ones I’ve explained, and you’ll be well on your way to using Safari effectively.
Customize Safari With These 10 Preferences - macmost.com
Safari has a lot of preferences but you can start customizing how it works by focusing on these 10. Change the behavior of what happens when you open a new window or tab, click on a link, or download a file. Also learn how to reduce clutter when typing in the address field.
How to Change Safari Preferences on My iPhone | Techwalla
How to Change Safari Preferences on My iPhone. As with many other apps, you'll find Safari's preferences not in the app itself but in the iOS 8 Settings app. To see and change available preferences for the iPhone's default Web browser, open Settings and tap Safari.
How do you open up safari preferences on … - Apple Community
To get to Safari Settings on an iPad, you open the Settings App, and scroll down to "Safari". Scroll down to Advanced, then on Website Data. However on iPad there is no option to delete data from a specific data.
3 Ways to Change Safari Settings on iPhone or iPad - wikiHow
This wikiHow teaches you how to customize the behavior of the Safari web browser on your iPhone or iPad. If you're using iOS 13 or later, you now have the option to choose display options for individual websites in addition to making...